Global Acritarch Database (>110000 occurrences)

Abstract

Acritarchs are microfossils of unclear biological affinities, mostly considered to be algae, with great significance for studying the origin and evolution of early life on Earth. Acritarchs' data are currently dispersed across various research institutions and databases worldwide, lacking unified integration and standardization. Palynodata was the largest database of acritarchs, containing 14 fields, 111 295 entries, 812 061 metadata items, and 7369 references. However, it lacked references post-2007 and excluded geographic data. Here, we collect and organize previous data, adding 29 fields, 4531 entries, 2 238 366 metadata points, and 415 references, to build the Global Acritarch Database (GAD). The expanded database now contains a total of 43 fields, covering genera, species, and related geological information (geological timescale, location, modern latitude and longitude, paleolatitude and paleolongitude, stratum, and others), amounting to 115 860 entries, 3 050 852 metadata points, and 7791 references. Each entry is associated with fields that facilitate a better understanding of the geographical distribution and changes over geological timescales of acritarchs, thereby revealing their temporal and spatial distribution patterns and evolution throughout the history of the Earth. This article describes GAD version 1.0, which is available at 10.5281/zenodo.15208303 (Shu et al., 2025).