Geochronology Laboratory (Rocasolano Institute of Physical Chemistry)

The Geochronology Laboratory was founded in the late 1960s at the Antonio de Gregorio Rocasolano Institute of Physical Chemistry (now Blas Cabrera). This institute, created in 1946 and located in the Rockefeller building, stood out from the outset for incorporating advanced instrumental techniques that were unique in Spain. The laboratory was the first centre in our country dedicated to carbon-14 dating. Its creation responded to the need to offer specialised scientific services in archaeology and geology, allowing the age of organic remains to be determined with great precision. The origins of the laboratory date back to Fernán Alonso Matthias's stay at the Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory at the University of Cambridge in 1962, where he trained under Dr Willis, one of the pioneers of the method. Upon his return, he promoted the creation of the laboratory and directed it until his retirement in 2002. Under his leadership, it became a national and international reference centre, analysing more than 2,000 samples from archaeological and geological sites in Spain, Portugal, Argentina, Brazil and other Latin American countries.

The documentary collection contains reports on analyses carried out to determine ages using the carbon-14 method, accompanied by related documentation such as questionnaires, print strips, correspondence and, to a lesser extent, graphic material such as drawings and photographs. This documentation allows the entire scientific process to be traced, from the receipt of samples to the delivery of results, and shows how laboratory techniques evolved over time. The original documents are stored in the BTNT archive, distributed across 32 installation units comprising a total of 2,563 files.

Seven datasets containing records from the ‘Geochronology Laboratory (Rocasolano Institute of Physical Chemistry)’ collection are shared. The data has been extracted using a query on ALMA, the library management system currently used by the CSIC. A query was performed to obtain the bibliographic data in .XML format. Once extracted, specific instructions (prompts) were used in the plus version of ChatGPT, currently based on OpenAI's GPT-4o model, in order to transform the XML file corresponding to the bibliographic records into .XLSX format to facilitate data visualisation. The file generated is as follows: ‘GEO_bibliografico_bruto’. From this raw file, a file in .XSLX format containing three tables was generated. All of them offer the same information, but with different headings (in MARC format, their name in Spanish and their name in English) to make them easier to understand for non-library users. Also, in this file containing three tables called ‘GEO_bibliografico_tratado’, the empty columns have been removed. For each sheet in this file, three different files in .TSV format have been generated: GEO_bibliografico_tratado_EN.tsv;GEO_bibliografico_tratado_ES.tsv and GEO_bibliografico_tratado_MARC21.tsv.

• Spanish
• English

Recommended citation : Tomás Navarro Tomás library; 2025; Geochronology Laboratory (Rocasolano Institute of Physical Chemistry) [DATASET]; DIGITAL.CSIC; https://doi.org/10.20350/digitalCSIC/17581