Temporal overview

The purpose is to describe date/time characteristics of resources. This includes the following:

• Time AD - the ability to describe date/time ranges like 1965-06-23 12:00:00Z to 1974 or 1492 to 1505 either with time (in UTC) or not. Begin and end times must be specified.
• Time AD to present - the ability to describe date ranges like 1996 to Present either with time (in UTC) or not. Begin and end times must be specified.
• Time BC - the ability to describe date ranges like -8700 to -2500 BC (no time allowed)
• Time relative - the ability to describe time ranges like (begin and end times must be specified):
  • 30 days ago to 0 days ago (present)
  • 1.2 billion years ago to 1.0 thousand years ago
  • 100 years forward to 1000 years forward (for use in say modeling climate change)
• Named time period - the ability to associate specified date/time information with a named time period like 1920 to 1930, e.g. 'The Roaring 20's'. Sources for the name must be indicated, e.g., 'cataloger provided'.
• Simple time period - the ability to name a recurring named time period without associating specified date/time information, e.g. 'spring semester', 'fall'

Temporal information is purposely separate from geospatial information because it will have to be searched over separately. Secondly, most of the standards metadata frameworks like FGDC, IMS and Dublin Core keep temporal and geospatial information separate.

Further information

To see more detailed information about individual metadata fields, the allowed number of field occurrences, controlled vocabularies or XML structures, please refer to the desired version number of the framework on the left-side navigation menu and then go to the See in XML section.

Last updated: 8 -22-03
Maintained by: Katy Ginger (support@dlese.org), DLESE Metadata

---

DLESE HOME | FAQ | GLOSSARY | SITE MAP | CONTACT US