Fossils for Future: the billion-dollar case for paleontology’s digital infrastructure

Elizabeth May Dowding, Emma M Dunne , Katie Collins, Kathryn Cryer, Kenneth De Baets, Danijela Dimitrijević, Stewart M. Edie, Seth Finnegan, Wolfgang Kiessling, Kari Lintulaakso, Lee Hsiang Liow, Holly Little, Lin Na, Shanan E Peters , Johan Renaudie, Erin E Saupe, Barbara Seuss, Jocelyn A. Sessa, Jansen A Smith, Mark D. Uhen, John Warren Williams , Ádám T Kocsis

The digital revolution has transformed paleontology through the development of open-access, community-driven databases that underpin some of the most impactful research in biodiversity, climate change, and extinction dynamics. These systems safeguard high-effort, volunteered data and have revealed major macroevolutionary patterns, including mass extinctions. However, of 118 paleontological and Earth science databases reviewed, 95% had lifespans under 15 years, putting decades of investment at risk. As paleontological data infrastructures enter a third generation—marked by modular design, improved data provenance, and cross-platform integration—there is growing potential to support multi-scalar, interdisciplinary research across Earth and Life sciences. We advocate for strategies to enhance database longevity, including sustained funding models, stronger institutional support, and modular backend architectures that better link international community databases to each other and to fossil specimens.