The Cryogenian-Ediacaran succession at Sheepbed Creek, Northwest Territories, Canada
How has Earth’s surface environment changed over the course of geological history? How have these shifting environmental conditions affected organisms living on our planet? The Sedimentary Geochemistry and Paleoenvironments Project (SGP) is an open, community-oriented, database-driven research consortium that seeks to address questions of environmental evolution across Earth history through statistical analyses of the sedimentary geochemical record. For decades, geologists and geochemists have generated data relevant to these important questions, and as results accumulated researchers have increasingly gravitated towards larger compilations and statistical tools. Foundational efforts utilized spreadsheets for data storage and analysis, suitable for several thousand samples, but not practical or scaleable for larger, more complex datasets – we have therefore built a relational database to accommodate these needs. The project is modeled after paleobiological studies, where researchers have rigorously worked to understand the impact of sampling intensity and geological bias on their results, and community efforts in fields like genomics, where multiple research groups have combined their data for more statistical power. This website serves as an introduction to the project’s aims, addresses Frequently Asked Questions about the work, and provides information for researchers interested in joining the collaboration.
SGP Phase 1 data
The SGP Phase 1 data is publicly available. The search website can be found here: https://sgp-search.io, and our wiki on the Phase 1 data product can be found here. Users downloading and re-using this data in publications should cite Farrell et al., 2021, Geobiology, in their methods sections.
At the same time, we are now moving on to collecting data for Phase 2, which will cover all of Earth history and also incorporate carbonate geochemical data. Please contact us to join! The only requirement to join our team is helping us grow the SGP database.
