dustymc
commented
5 years ago Named 3D localities is probably best from a data modeling standpoint, but that doesn't matter if nobody can use it. The names are just unique identifiers - you could use "locality 6 - {geology or elevation or whatever}" to break up "locality 6." (Or just letter suffixes, but there's no particular reason NOT to be verbose.)
There's an OtherID "Locality ID" that I think has been used for "collector's locality names" when they don't line up with Arctos' idea of a locality. That allows many specimens that vary by elevation/depth/geology to still share a searchable identifier. This is probably an alternative to naming localities, but it could be used together.
Archeology has a bunch of fine-grained "locality" data (that I don't really understand) in Attributes - maybe something there could be useful. https://arctos.database.museum/info/ctDocumentation.cfm?table=CTATTRIBUTE_TYPE&coln=Arc
Anything involving remarks should be an absolute last resort.
mbprondzinski
I need advice on how to handle site numbers for AL Paleo collections. When entering UTEP Paleo data, I created localities for each "dig site" and gave them a locality nickname so that it would be easy for the curator to find everything from a single site. This worked quite well an I had planned to the same for AL Paleo, but they have more complex sites and not everything from a given site is found in the same geologic stratum. In order to clearly show which stuff is from which stratum, I will need to create multiple localities, so the nickname idea won't work, since those must be unique. Here are some solutions I have considered:
Add a letter or number to the end of the site designation in the nickname field so that there will be multiple, essentially duplicate localities except for the geology attribute. It seems like a good choice, but I have concerns that a curator will search for the exact site name and miss stuff.
Add an other ID of "site number" to every specimen and create multiple localities without nicknames. This might work better, but I sort of dislike separating the site number from the location. It could pose problems in future data entry.
Create a single locality with the site nickname that holds all of the included geology attributes and put the catalog numbers of the appropriate specimens in the remarks field for the matching geology attribute. I really dislike this - no one else will understand it.
Create a single locality with the site nickname that holds all of the included geology attributes and put the geology attribute in the specimen event remarks. Again, I don't like this because no one will understand it later.
Put the site number in locality remarks and create multiple localities without nicknames. This might be the best option, but how will anyone intuitively know to search there?
Should geology be specimen attributes instead of locality attributes? At a given locality you can have multiple geologic strata and paleo people have a tradition of labeling sites, not site + strata.
Any advice will be appreciated!
@dperriguey @dustymc @mbprondzinski