Closed jb388 closed 4 years ago
I agree that this is confusing. In comparing the frc_obs_date_y and lyr_obs_date_y across some fraction data, I noticed that the values are occasionally different. Presumably this could be because samples were fractionated at a different time but perhaps that information would be better captured in the frc_rc_year field?
I think I was overthinking this. The incubation date fields are definitely useful for recording time series. Since the fraction table was intended to capture a wide range of possible fractionation schemes, I suppose there may be some cases in which it would be helpful to capture temporal data? I can't think of anything off-hand though.
So, we should definitely keep the incubation date fields. I would actually suggest keeping the frc_obs_date fields, too, in light of issue #212 (one more "flag" for cases where data may not have been age corrected).
I'm going to go ahead and close this, but feel free to reopen if you want to discuss further.
@aahoyt @ShaneStoner @coreylawrence The frc_obs_date and inc_obs_date fields were intended for recording the date when the samples were processed in the lab. I don't find this to be useful, and in fact, I think it is both confusing and potentially misleading. Some of our ISRaD_extra functions use the date fields (e.g. to fill 14C/fraction modern/delta-delta), and those functions actually need the lyr_obs_date_y in order to work properly. I propose removing these columns (note that they are not required by QAQC).