Draft version 1.7 beta — Revised October 30, 2026
← Return to the table in Chapter 4 § 5
Insufficient recording of data
A topic page linked from Chapter 4 § 5, Examples of Reported Violations of Enforceable Ethics Codes.
Definition
Data can be recorded many ways: operating an automatic datalogger; writing notes in a paper fieldbook; recording a video of a natural process; audio recording of witness testimony after a natural disaster. Insufficient recording of data could mean not reporting the data consistently, or competently, or completely for each instance, or illegibly (e.g., bad printing or handwriting, or using water-soluble ink writing on plain paper during rainy weather).
More often than not, "insufficient recording of data" means not recording enough data, or the right kinds of data, or an incomplete set of data for the same observational instance. An example of this last problem would be that you recorded a strike-and-dip of a surface, but failed to record its location, or whether it is a bedding surface or a joint surface or a fault surface. Or you might have used your Brunton Compass competently, but failed to record the magnetic declination that it had been set for. Or you recorded all of these bits of related data, but failed to take more than one strike-and-dip measurement at the site so you could not determine any site statistics for the measurement.
A primary goal of the process of recording and reporting the data is to allow an independent investigator to reproduce your work.
A case recollection. I once had a very bright undergraduate student who worked on a classic problem in structural geology as his Bachelor's thesis research. His goal was to estimate how much of a thick limestone bed had dissolved along the stylolitic (pressure-solution) cleavage. He cut many small rectangular blocks of a limestone that had spaced stylolites. Some of his blocks had a stylolitic cleavage parallel to two sides of the block, and others had no stylolites. He was fastidious about cutting the blocks, labeling them, weighing them, measured the width of the stylolitic envelope (culmination to depression), and so forth. He then dissolved each in hydrochloric acid, and weighed the insoluble residue. But he had forgotten to measure the dimensions of each rectangular prism, so he did not know the volume of each block. Oops! Insufficient recording of data.
His thesis was an account of a failed experiment, which was well written, brutally honest, and thorough. It was also unanimously approved by his thesis committee.
Relevant provisions in geoethics codes
AGI – § 2.4; AGU – § IIIB4; GSA – § 3.1b.
Code Abbreviations
- AGI — American Geosciences Institute, AGI Guidelines for Ethical Professional Conduct (2015), Link to current document
- AGU — American Geophysical Union, AGU Scientific Integrity and Professional Ethics (2023), Link to current document
- GSA — Geological Society of America, GSA Code of Ethics & Professional Conduct (2023), Link to current document
Notes and References
X Till, R., 1974, Statistical Methods for the Earth Scientist, An Introduction: New York, John Wiley & Sons, 154 p., ISBN 0 470-26340-7.
X McKillup, S., and Darby Dyar, M,, 2010, Geostatistics Explained, An Introductory Guide for Earth Scientists: Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 396 p., ISBN 978-0-521-74656-4.
X Willink, R., 2013, Measurement Uncertainty and Probability: Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 276 p., ISBN 978-1-107-02193-8.
X Taylor, J.R., 2022, An Introduction to Error Analysis, The Study of Uncertainties in Physical Measurements [3rd Edition]: New York, University Science Books, 371 p., ISBN 978-1-940380-08-7.
X Box, G.E.P., Hunter, J.S., and Hunter, W.G., 2005, Statistics for Experimenters, Design, Innovation, and Discovery [2nd Edition]: Hoboken, NJ, John Wiley & Sons, 639 p., ISBN 0-471-71813-0
6 Menke, W., 2024, Geophysical Data Analysis and Inverse Theory with MATLAB and Python: Academic Press, 342 p., ISBN 9780443137945