Deep-Time Marine Sedimentary Element Database

Abstract. Geochemical data from ancient marine sediments are crucial for studying palaeoenvironments, palaeoclimates, and elements’ cycles. With increased accessibility to geochemical data, many databases have emerged. However, there remains a need for a more comprehensive database that focuses on deep-time marine sediment records. Here, we introduce the “Deep-Time Marine Sedimentary Element Database” (DM-SED). The DM-SED has been built upon the “Sedimentary Geochemistry and Paleoenvironments Project” (SGP) database with the new compilation of 34,938 data entries from 433 studies, totalling 63,691 entries. The DM-SED contains 2,412,085 discrete marine sedimentary data points, including major and trace elements and some isotopes. It includes 9,271 entries from the Precambrian and 54,420 entries from the Phanerozoic, thus providing significant references for reconstructing deep-time Earth system evolution. The data files described in this paper are available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13898366 (Lai et al., 2024).