Supplementary material to "The Reading Palaeofire database: an expanded global resource to document changes in fire regimes from sedimentary charcoal records"

Abstract

This supplementary contains: 4 SI Table 1. Information of the charcoal records (sites and entities) in the Reading Palaeofire Database version 1. Latitude and longitude are in decimal degrees, and elevation in metres above/below sea level. Fields where information could be available but was never recorded or has subsequently been lost are represented by -999999, fields where we were unable to obtain this information but it could be included in subsequent updates of the database are represented by -777777, fields where specific information is not applicable are represented by -888888. SI Table 2. List of pre-defined valid choices for restricted fields in the Reading Palaeofire Database version 1. SI Table 3: List of charcoal measurement units currently used in the Reading Palaeofire Database version 1 SI Figure 1: Supplementary Figure 1. Summary of the stages used to select the optimum RBacon age models for from ageR. Plots A.-C. show the modelling output from ageR for an example entity from the RPD (Geral core), where the optimum age model selected by ageR A. is a table ranking the age model scenarios by the lowest area between the prior and posterior accumulation rate curves. Note that only the top 5 model scenarios of a total of 25 run for this entity are listed B. Shows the plots for the prior and posterior accumulation rates and the area between curves for the top 5 model scenarios.C. Is the top ranked RBacon age model (Accumulation rate = 15, thickness = 10) which was visually checked to verify that the interpolation through the dates was valid and consistent with the dates. In this example, the top ranked model scenario selected by ageR (Accumulation rate = 15, thickness= 10) was accepted as the chosen model scenario as the interpolation through the dates is valid. SI Figure 2. An example of alternative model scenario selection where the top ranked ageR model scenario is deemed to be inaccurate. In this example, the top ranked model scenario from King Tableland Swamp (accumulation rate = 45, thickness = 5)(A.) with the lowest area between the prior and posterior accumulation rate curves (B.) does not accurately represent the date at 157.5cm. This age was included by the original authors and lies in stratigraphic order with the other dates. Therefore, this model is rejected in favour of the model with the next lowest abc score which accurately reflects the dates included (ageR model ranking 3 in A.). The RBacon plot for this age model scenario is shown in D. (accumulation rate = 90, thickness = 5) and is more accurately and precisely modelled through the dates than the model selected by ageR. Site name Entities (#) Elevation (m) Latitude (°) Longitude (°) Site Type Water depth (m) Basin size (km 2 ) Citation(s)