Jones, Lewis A;
Dean, Christopher D;
Gearty, William;
Allen, Bethany J;
(2024)
rmacrostrat: An R package for accessing and retrieving data from the Macrostrat geological database.
Geosphere
, 20
(6)
pp. 1456-1467.
10.1130/ges02815.1.
Preview |
PDF
ges02815.1.pdf - Published Version Download (4MB) | Preview |
Abstract
The geological record is a vast archive of information that provides the only empirical data about the evolution of the Earth. In recent years, concentrated efforts have been made to compile macrostratigraphic data into the online centralized database Macrostrat. Macrostrat is a global stratigraphic database containing information regarding surface and subsurface rock units and their respective ages, lithologies, geographic extents, and various other associated metadata. However, these raw data are currently directly accessible only through the Macrostrat application programming interface, which is a barrier to potential users that are less familiar with such services. This data accessibility hurdle currently prevents full capitalization of the value offered by Macrostrat, particularly its potential to improve understanding of the geological and biological evolution of the Earth. Here, we introduce rmacrostrat, an R package that interfaces with the Macrostrat database to access and retrieve a variety of geological, paleontological, and economic data directly into the R programming environment. In this article, we provide details about how the package can be installed, its implementation, and potential use cases. For the latter, we showcase how rmacrostrat can be used to visualize regional stratigraphic columns, produce regional geologic outcrop maps, and investigate temporal trends in macrostratigraphic units. We hope that this package will make geological data more readily accessible and in turn will facilitate new research utilizing Earth system data.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | rmacrostrat: An R package for accessing and retrieving data from the Macrostrat geological database |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1130/ges02815.1 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/ges02815.1 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. The images or other third-party material in this article are included in the Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/deed.en |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Earth Sciences |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10200799 |
Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
