About

About MioOcean

MioOcean is an open, community‑driven paleoceanographic database designed to compile, harmonize, and share proxy data to reconstruct ocean temperatures across the Miocene. Our aim is to create a unified resource that supports reproducible research, cross‑proxy comparisons, and large‑scale syntheses of past climate and ocean states.

The project re-evaluates and re-calculates existing age models and brings together geochemical proxy data from planktic and benthic foraminifera, as well as lipid biomarkers.


Our Mission

MioOcean exists to:

  • Integrate dispersed paleoceanographic datasets into a single, consistent structure
  • Enable comparison across sites, proxies, and time intervals
  • Support open science and FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data practices
  • Accelerate scientific discovery by making high‑quality, curated data publicly accessible
  • Encourage collaboration within the paleoceanographic community

Scientific Scope

MioOcean focuses on time intervals critical to understanding Earth’s past climate dynamics, including but not limited to:

  • Miocene Climate Optimum (MCO)
  • Middle Miocene Climate Transition (MMCT)
  • Late Miocene Cooling (LMC)

As the database grows, new proxy data and proxy types will continue to be added through community contributions.


Data Included

MioOcean hosts and organizes a wide range of marine proxy data, such as:

Inorganic Proxies

  • Foraminifera Mg/Ca
  • Foraminifera and coccolithophore clumped isotopes
  • Glassy foraminifera δ18O

Organic Proxies

  • GDGT-derived TEX86
  • Alkenone-derived UK37

Metadata

  • Core/site information (IODP/ODP/DSDP and non‑drilled sites)
  • Publication, Database and Age Model references

Updated Ages

  • recalculated MioOcean depths
  • recalculated MioOcean ages

Contribute to MioOcean

MioOcean thrives through community participation. You can contribute by:

  • Uploading newly generated or legacy datasets
  • Sharing updated age models
  • Adding site‑level metadata
  • Reporting issues or inconsistencies
  • Suggesting new proxy categories or data structures

To submit data, please visit our Submit Your Data page, where you will find data templates, metadata guidelines, and licensing information.


Open Science Commitment

MioOcean is built on the principles of transparency, reproducibility, and openness. All datasets are:

  • Freely available for research and teaching
  • Cited and credited to original authors
  • Released under an open data license (details on the submission page)

We welcome collaboration from researchers, students, field teams, labs, and citizen scientists.


Join the Community

Whether you are contributing data, using the database for research, or exploring Earth’s climate history for the first time, we invite you to become part of the MioOcean community.

If you would like to collaborate, contribute, or learn more, please get in touch.