PANGAEA Data Publisher for Earth and Environmental Science AWI / MARUM

Overview

PANGAEA is an open-access digital library and data publisher for earth system science, jointly operated by the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) in Bremerhaven, and the Center for Marine Environmental Sciences (MARUM) at the University of Bremen. It archives, publishes, and distributes georeferenced observational and experimental data from the earth, environmental, and biodiversity sciences.

History and Founding

PANGAEA originated from the SEDAT/SEDAN database, first developed in 1987 to structure information about sediment cores and promote sediment data analysis. In the mid-1990s, the system was expanded into a comprehensive information system for long-term archiving and publication of earth and environmental science data, and was renamed PANGAEA—an acronym for PAleoNetwork for GeologicAl and EnvironmentAl data. The system became operational on the internet in 1995. In 1992, the present institutional framework was established. PANGAEA was formally accredited as a World Data Center by the International Council for Science (ICSU) in 2001 and has held the CoreTrustSeal certification since 2019.

Collections and Holdings

PANGAEA holds a vast repository of georeferenced scientific datasets covering oceanography, marine geology, climatology, atmospheric science, ecology, and related disciplines. The system archives data in a relational database with comprehensive metadata conforming to the ISO 19115 standard, and assigns Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) to all datasets for persistent citation. As of 2022, PANGAEA has registered nearly 19,500 users and millions of dataset page visits annually. The repository also holds large inventories of paleoclimate data, including isotope, geochemical, pollen, and tree-ring records.

Access and Usage

Most data in PANGAEA are freely available and distributed through open web services in standard formats. The platform supports interoperability with major data portals including DataOne, GEOSS, GBIF, and NOAA. PANGAEA is covered by the Web of Science data citation index and is listed in registries such as re3data.org. Users may submit data directly, and the platform provides a full editorial workflow for review and quality control. R and Python packages are available for programmatic access.

Standards and Accreditation

PANGAEA complies with the FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management, the Berlin Declaration on Open Access, and OECD principles for research data access. It holds accreditation as a World Radiation Monitoring Center (WRMC) within the World Meteorological Organization Information System (WIS) and is a member of the World Data System of the International Science Council.