Integrating timescales with time-transfer functions: a practical approach for an INTIMATE database

This paper outlines the design of a database that is intended to provide integration of timescales and associated environmental proxy information. The database allows for the fact that all timescales have their own limitations, which should be quantified in terms of the uncertainties quoted. It also makes use of the fact that each timescale has strengths in terms of describing the data directly associated with it. For this reason the approach taken allows users to look at data on any timescale that can in some way be related to the data of interest, rather than specifying a specific timescale or timescales which should always be used. The information going into the database is primarily: proxy information (principally from sediments and ice cores) against depth, age depth models against reference chronologies (typically IntCal or ice core), and time-transfer functions that relate different timescales to each other, through the use of event stratigraphies or global phenomena such as cosmogenic isotope production rate variations.