Screening to Name Geological Age “Chibanian” Suspended

May 19, 2018

Tokyo- An international organization has halted its screening to name a geological period 126,000 to 770,000 years ago after Japan's Chiba Prefecture due to a data falsification allegation, a Japanese study team said Friday.

The International Union of Geological Sciences was examining the research team's proposal that the period be called "Chibanian" because a stratum in Ichihara of the prefecture, east of Tokyo, from 770,000 years ago deserves to be the internationally agreed reference point for the period as concluded by an expert committee of the IUGS.

If the stratum passes the examination, a geological period will bear a Japanese name for the first time ever.

But the screening stopped after a person related to a separate Japanese group emailed senior IUGS officials and Italian researchers in April that some data used by the Japanese team, including researchers from Ibaraki University and the National Institute of Polar Research, were collected from a different place.

At a press conference Friday, the Japanese researchers admitted the use of such data. But they stressed the legitimacy of their study for the proposal to the IUGS, saying the data in question were on a stratum proved to be of the same age.

The Chiba stratum was vying with two Italian layers for the geological period's naming. Jiji Press