About EarthChem

EarthChem is a community driven project to facilitate the compilation and dissemination of geochemical data of all types. The project is active at building a home for future data contributions by working with authors, societies, and publishers as well as government organization. In addition, the EarthChem project responds to community needs to facilitate compiling and serving data.

At the GeoEarthScope town hall meeting held in association with the 2006 GSA National Meeting in Philadelphia, attendees discussed the necessity of a home for geochronology data collected by that project. Consensus opinion of attendees and organizers was that EarthChem should be the group to provide data management for data collected in association with GeoEarthScope, storing and serving geochronological data submitted by participating facilities. Such a management system would be useful to other workers in geochronology. This emphasis was endorsed by the EarthChem advisory board at its 2006 annual meeting with the caveat that it be designed to facilitate geochronological contributions from the larger community.

Workshops have been held for U-Pb, (U-Th)/He, Ar-Ar, LA-ICP-MS, and cosmogenic radionuclide dating. These reports can be found at the EarthChem site (earthchem.org). Meetings are planned for U-series methods as well.