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The short versionA granular, community-derived vocabulary for dwc:materialEntityType would let users filter fossil records by what the material actually is, which basisOfRecord cannot do.
↶Go back to 2025Data Package pilot · 1 connection↓
Revisit Living Data 2025 alongside this talk. These connections were checked against captions; related examples may come from different teams rather than a direct follow-up.
Continuing work
Fossil categories → a more specific vocabulary proposal
2025 Living Data
Holly Little says the fossil categorisation work is helping develop values for materialEntityType.
Characterizing paleontological specimens for maximal alignment with global data practices
most often core samples. That work has also helped us to develop values that can be used to further develop a vocabulary for a newer draw core term, material entity type, which is key for describing what a fossil actually is. Paleo collections have of course been publishing data mapped to Darwin Core using the Darwin Core archive model as long as it has existed. But that version does have limitations for meeting our data publishing goals. Events and localities are critical for paleo research. While that data can be shared with the Darwin core archive, it often has limited discoverability. Importantly, in previous published data, it is actually quite difficult to know what exactly that record is documenting. For example, if you're looking at a single record for a fossil insect, you might
2026 This talk
Holly presents a vocabulary document and describes proposed first-level values with a more informal second level.
A community-curated controlled vocabulary for fossil collections using dwc:materialEntityType
us in an initial search and filter for when you're trying to find the right fossil records for your collection or for your search. So we have a QR code here for a document that outlines the vocabulary terms that we're proposing. It's just this initial set. We do think that this is likely going to be a hierarchical vocabulary with two concept levels. So what we're proposing right now is just the first level of values, and then nested under that is probably a more informal list of terms that could be used to be more specific within those if you want to do that, if you want to adopt it to that level, or you need that within your own system. And so those level two are included just to give some context and help understand how we organize this in the document. And with that, I will leave you with our-- Is this two minutes? Okay, good. I thought you were holding up the end sign. So this is, again, the list of terms that we're proposing with images from the talk of how we would align those images to those terms.
This is a strong thread through the same speaker, term and paleontology workstream, with a more concrete vocabulary proposal in the later talk.
About this connection
The 2026 proposal is still seeking feedback; the recordings do not demonstrate that the vocabulary was ratified or deployed everywhere.
This pilot covers one 2025 symposium and selected 2026 moments. Automatic captions can contain mistakes; audio has not been checked.
Overview
What this was about
Holly Little explained why the new Darwin Core terms materialEntityCategory and materialEntityType (from the Darwin Core Data Package work) give paleontology collections a chance to go beyond basisOfRecord = FossilSpecimen. Using examples (insects in amber versus compression fossils, bivalves in matrix, forams as bulk samples, picks, slides or macrofossils, trilobite mass-mortality slabs) she showed that early values such as macrofossil/mesofossil/microfossil are too coarse for search, research and imaging planning. The group proposes a first-level controlled vocabulary drawn from terms collections already use, with an informal second level, and is seeking community feedback via a QR-linked document before formal proposal to Darwin Core.
Why it matters. Fossil records in aggregators like GBIF are hard to filter by the kind of physical material; a shared vocabulary improves discoverability for researchers and planning for collections staff (e.g. imaging workflows).
Key ideas
In the room
basisOfRecord = FossilSpecimen only separates fossils from other record types; it cannot distinguish e.g. an insect in amber from a compression fossil.
materialEntityCategory would carry 'fossil'/'fossilized', while materialEntityType can be more specific; early proposed values (macro-, meso-, micro-, oversized fossil) were judged not granular enough.
Feedback was gathered from the Paleo Data Working Group, researchers, a session at the Smithsonian NMNH, the TDWG Earth Sciences and Paleobiology Interest Group and a US collections workshop.
The vocabulary prioritises terms the paleo community already uses; some perceived overlap between terms is intentional.
Proposal is hierarchical: a formal first level plus an informal nested second level for institutions wanting more detail.
It covers paleontology only; geology material types are handled by a separate vocabulary Ben Norton is developing.
Other terms (dwc:preparations, counts, taxonomy, Latimer Core terms) help but are uncontrolled, not indexed or not in Darwin Core; a morphology term does not yet exist.
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Transcript
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