Lake

Paleolimnology is the study of past conditions of inland fresh water bodies. A variety of measurements from lake and bog sediments are used to indicate past water temperature, physical properties, biology, and chemistry.

Obtaining Data at the World Data Center

Search Datasets

• Lake Data Search Engine
  ​Search through lake data studies using Investigator, Title, Location Name, Parameters, and Latitude/Longitude Bounds.
• Interactive Map
  Select study locations by region, proximity to a point or, text-based attributes.
• Google Earth Map
  Locate and download lake data studies using a Google Earth map interface. Google Earth must be installed to use this search tool.
• Search All Paleoclimatology Data
  A free text search of our entire study archive.
• Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Catalog Service for the Web
  ​Harvest paleoclimate study metadata records using an OGC web service.

Browse Datasets

• List of Lake Datasets by Title and Investigator
• List of Lake Datasets by Location Name
• Lake Level Reconstruction
• Pollen Data
• Plant Macrofossil Data
• Benson and Paillet (2002) HIBAL Hydrologic Isotopic Balance Program

Contributing Data

Investigators who wish to contribute their data to our Lake Data archive can find information on contributing below. Data and study description information can be contributed by emailing completed data contribution templates to paleo@noaa.gov.

• General Information on Contributing Data

Other Data Archives

Additional sources outside of NCEI for data and information on lake sediments and climate science.

• Trieste 2008 Workshop Report on Lake Sediments
• Biome 6000 Vegetation Reconstructions
• Core Curators Database at the National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC)
• Diatom Paleolimnology Data Cooperative
• Limnological Research Center, University of Minnesota
• USGS Open-File Report 95-1 (Paleoclimatic History of Western Utah)