A geospatial inventory dataset of study sites in a Korean Quaternary paleoecology database

Abstract

Ecological insights beyond human-observable timescales are derived from records preserved in geological sediments worldwide. Nonetheless, significant regional data gaps persist in global syntheses of these records as open data practices are still emerging. Korean Quaternary paleoecological data remain underrepresented in global research efforts, despite a growing body of site-level research. Here, we organize an inventory of 328 paleoecological study sites (72 paleo-sites with paleoproxy-based records from sediments and 256 surface sites with modern pollen samples) in South Korea, compiled from 66 research articles published from 2003 to 2023. We have built three datasets (https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.28236596.v2, Kim and Byun, 2025) related to this inventory: (1) Publication Metadata, which provide citation details of the 66 articles; (2) the Site Inventory, which contains metadata about geospatial coordinates, depositional environments, chronological ranges, age coverage, and proxies; and (3) Geochronology Data, which include chronological details (dating methods, ages, and depth points) for each site. The sites span 33.2508 to 33.4808° N and 126.1486 to 129.2132° E, with elevations from −156 to 1867.5 m. Sediment samples were collected by coring or trenching from six depositional environments: open coastal zone, estuary, lagoon, river, volcanic cone, and other. A total of 812 chronological controls were analyzed, and most are based on radiocarbon dating. Pollen, diatoms, and grain size have been widely applied, with multi-proxy approaches increasingly common in recent studies. To enhance accessibility, we have developed GeoEcoKorea (https://www.geoecokorea.org, last access: 28 August 2025), an open-access platform featuring interactive maps where each site marker displays site-level metadata and links to bibliographic information and uncalibrated geochronological datasets, when available. In addition to promoting FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable) data practices, our platform aims to foster more collaborative and inclusive data-sharing cultures, enable regional syntheses of long-term ecosystem dynamics, and contribute Korean paleoecological data to global-scale reconstruction of past environmental changes.