Ordination analysis in sedimentology, geochemistry and palaeoenvironment—Background, current trends and recommendations

Ordination is the name given to a group of methods used to analyse multiple variables without preceding hypotheses. Over the last few decades, the use of these methods in Earth science in general, and notably in analyses of sedimentary sources, has dramatically increased. However, with limited resou...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The depositional record 2021-09, Vol.7 (3), p.541-563
Main Authors: Bialik, Or M., Jarochowska, Emilia, Grossowicz, Michal
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Algorithms
clustering
Data analysis
Datasets
DCA
dimension reduction
Earth science
Ecologists
exploratory statistics
Geochemistry
Geology
Hypotheses
Multivariate analysis
multivariate statistics
NMDS
Ordination
PCA
Polls & surveys
Principal components analysis
Reproducibility
Scientists
Sedimentology
Software packages
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Summary:Ordination is the name given to a group of methods used to analyse multiple variables without preceding hypotheses. Over the last few decades, the use of these methods in Earth science in general, and notably in analyses of sedimentary sources, has dramatically increased. However, with limited resources oriented towards Earth scientists on the topic, the application of ordination analysis is at times suboptimal and misuse by authors can occur. This text was written for researchers with little to no experience with ordination with the aim of exposing them to the utility and the pitfalls of this branch of exploratory statistics. To do so, a detailed review of three ordination methods is offered: principal component analysis, non‐metric multidimensional scaling and detrended correspondence analysis. A survey of 163 publications in Earth science is presented, in which these ordination methods were used together with a summary of how, why and on what type of data ordination was used. With common mistakes outlined and misuses in those publications identified. Notably, issues were found with reproducibility, documentation, data set dimensions and transformations. Based on this survey, a recommended workflow is offered for Earth scientists who wish to apply ordination. Additionally, this article is accompanied by highly annotated R scripts for novice users to use these methods. Ordination is a group of multivariate exploratory statistical methods becoming increasingly popular in sedimentary research. This work reviews the trends in the use of ordination in the field, maps issues and pitfalls and makes recommendations for a workflow.
ISSN:2055-4877
2055-4877
DOI:10.1002/dep2.161