Preparation of a comprehensive palynological norwegian dataset for digital re-analysis and publication as Open Data

The data management aspects to prepare a comprehensive palynological dataset, digitally collected and curated by Dr. Helge Høeg during his career as Palynologist in Norway since the 1970ies, for reuse with modern analysis methods and technologies and publication as Open Data, are discussed in this presentation. As presented on last years CAA, this dataset has distinguished potential to increase the knowledge of the norwegian paleoenvironment since the last ice age, for example by application of new machine learning based methods to this dataset. The palynological data are given in a proprietary format as .til and .tgx files originating from the MS Windows based palynological analysis software Tilia. There are around 1000 of these files for the >300 sites constituting this dataset. The process of data transformation to an open format, as well as the alignment with metadata schemas and taxonomies from the palynology domain will be discussed. An overview of the current Open Data and data management practice in the palynology domain, including some Open Data base projects will be given. The technical upload process into some of these systems were tested and will be discussed, to align and compare our approach with existing best practice in this field.