A status report on a section-based stratigraphic and palaeontological database – the Geobiodiversity Database

Abstract

Big data are significant for quantitative analysis and contribute to data-driven scientific research and discoveries. Here a brief introduction is given to the Geobiodiversity Database (GBDB), a comprehensive stratigraphic and palaeontological database, and its data. The GBDB includes abundant geological records from China and has supported a series of scientific studies on the Paleozoic palaeogeography and tectonic and biodiversity evolution of China. The data that the GBDB has including those that are newly collected are described in detail; the statistical results and structure of the data are given. A comparison between the GBDB; the largest palaeobiological database, the Paleobiology Database (PBDB); and the geological rock database Macrostrat is drawn. The GBDB and other databases are complementary in palaeontological and stratigraphic research. The GBDB will continually provide users access to detailed palaeontological and stratigraphic data based on publications. Non-structured data of palaeontology and stratigraphy will also be included in the GBDB, and they will be organically correlated with the existing data of the GBDB, making the GBDB more widely used for both researchers and anyone who is interested in fossils and strata. The GBDB fossil and stratum dataset (Xu, 2020) is freely downloadable from https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4245604.