public catalogue · open access · last index pass 2026-05-08 08:14:02 UTChost: cat-pub-04 · build 0.14.3-prototype · rev rA9F2

anonymousmaterials.com

central registry of unattributed material samples · est. 2007 · maintained by volunteers

overview›glossary

glossary of registry terms

The vocabulary below is internal to the registry. Each term is given a short definition and, where applicable, a cross-reference to the section of the cataloguing rules or the methodology document that governs its use. Terms not defined here carry their ordinary meaning in mineralogy, materials science, or plain language.

jump to:ABCDEFGHILMNPRSVW

A

accession
The act of admitting a material specimen into the registry's holdings; by extension, the resulting record. Each accession bears a unique accession identifier and a fixed set of descriptive fields.
accession books, printed
The bound, hand-numbered volumes in which each accession is recorded at the moment of intake. The printed accession books are the registry's authoritative bookkeeping record; the public mirror is a serialisation of their machine-readable index.
accession identifier
An opaque string of the form AM-YYYY-NNNNN-X uniquely identifying an accession. The pass-letter suffix denotes the analytical pass under which the metadata is reported.
active observation
A status applied to a record that has not yet completed analytical review and that the registrar judges to merit periodic re-examination, ordinarily at no greater interval than 90 days.
addendum series
An open-ended series of registrar's notes recording decisions of procedural significance: re-passes ordered, anomaly-class promotions or demotions, withdrawals, and ad-hoc determinations under §1.3.
annual gazette
The single short document issued at year-end summarising the year's accessions, withdrawals, and errata, and publishing the year-end head-hash declaration. Counter-signed by the notary.
anomaly class
An internal classification of a flagged record into one of five categories (I composition, II structural, III persistent state, IV spectral coherence, V indeterminate). The classification is internal to the registry and carries no formal standing in the wider literature.
archived
A status applied to a record whose analytical review is complete and whose metadata has been folded into the catalogue's stable surface. Archived records may still be amended via errata.

B

bulletin
A numbered procedural notice issued by the standing registrar. Bulletins are circulated to subscribers and are also archived in the public bulletin index.

C

canonical ordering
The unique sort order over the catalogue's records used in the construction of the proof-chain: by date of submission ascending, with ties broken by accession identifier ascending.
chain of custody
The ordered sequence of recorded interactions with a specimen — intake, analytical pass, storage, re-inspection — that documents an unbroken physical accountability for the material.
concordance
The mapping of legacy accession identifiers, issued under earlier numbering conventions, to identifiers in the present scheme. Maintained as part of the public errata archive.
cross-reference
A relation between two accession records that the registrar wishes to make machine-readable. Common reasons include shared spectral features, a superseding/superseded relationship, and joint provenance.

D

deputy
An officer designated by the standing registrar to act on the registrar's authority for a defined purpose. Deputies are bound by the cataloguing rules.

E

erratum (pl. errata)
A formally issued correction to a previously published record. Each erratum carries an identifier of the form ERR-YYYY-NNNN, the field corrected, the prior value, the new value, and the basis on which the correction was accepted.

F

fluorescence rescue
A pass-B re-acquisition at 785 nm undertaken when the 532 nm response of a specimen is dominated by fluorescence and yields no usable spectroscopic information.

G

genesis-hash
The fixed, registry-wide constant anchoring the proof-chain. The chain's first link computes its hash against the genesis-hash; subsequent links chain forward.

H

head-hash
The proof-hash of the most recent record under the canonical ordering. Holders of any prior head-hash can verify, against the present head-hash, that the catalogue is a consistent extension of the prior state.

I

index fragment
A short integrity glyph derived from the head-hash, displayed in the registry's house style 0xNNNN.NNN. Visible in the page footer.
intake
The procedure by which a physical specimen passes from the submitter into the custody of the registry. Performed by post or by drop-off at the registry's published intake address.

L

locality, type
The submitter-reported geographic origin of the specimen, retained verbatim. The field is descriptive rather than cadastral; the registry does not normalise localities into a gazetteer.
locality, withheld
A locality recorded as 'withheld at submitter's request'. Retained verbatim on the public record; the original is held in the printed accession books and is not published.

M

merged record
A withdrawn record whose holdings have been folded into a successor record under the same accession identifier of the successor. The withdrawal note carries the merged classification.
monitor, public
The publicly accessible mirror of the registry's operations dashboard. Reports counts, queue depth, integrity status, and recently observed cross-correlations as of the moment of rendering.

N

notary
An external officer who holds a counter-signed copy of the head-hash at year-end. The notary is read-only with respect to the catalogue.

P

pass A
The first analytical pass: visual inspection, mass to ±0.01 g, density estimate by the Archimedes method. Performed on every accessioned specimen.
pass B
The second analytical pass: Raman spectroscopy at 532 nm by default, with 785 nm reserved for fluorescence rescue. Performed on the great majority of specimens.
pass C
The third analytical pass: x-ray diffraction with Cu Kα radiation. Performed where pass B has yielded ambiguous results, on roughly one specimen in five.
pass D · external arrangement
Analysis at an external facility, undertaken only where compositional ambiguity remains after pass C. Pass D is rare and is recorded individually in the addendum series.
pass E · re-analysis
A repeated execution of an earlier pass, performed where instrumentation has been substantially recalibrated or where new evidence calls an earlier finding into question. Supersedes the earlier result on the public record.
pass-letter suffix
A single uppercase Latin letter at the end of an accession identifier denoting the analytical pass under which the metadata is reported. A: pass A, B: pass B, and so on.
prominence threshold
A criterion applied to spectroscopic peaks before they are reported as features: the local prominence of the peak above a rolling-baseline must exceed three times the locally estimated noise. Peaks below this threshold are excluded.
proof-chain
A chained-hash construction over the catalogue's records under the canonical ordering. Each record's proof-hash equals sha256 of the prior hash concatenated with the canonical serialisation of the record's identifying fields.
proof-hash
cf. verify
The SHA-256 link assigned to a record by the proof-chain construction. Stored on the row at insert time; surfaced on the record's detail page and consultable through the verifier.

R

redacted
A field whose value the registry has, at submitter request or registrar discretion, suppressed from the public record. The original is held in the printed accession books and is not published.
registrar, standing
The single officer holding the registrar's seat at any given moment. The seat is held singly, rotates over time, and the holder is not published. The standing registrar is the only party with write capability against the canonical record.
rolling-ball baseline
The baseline subtraction algorithm used in the registry's Raman pipeline. A ball of fixed radius is rolled along the underside of the spectrum; the position of its centre traces the baseline, which is then subtracted.

S

seal-break
An event recorded in a specimen's chain of custody whenever its container is opened. Seal-breaks are minimised; consultations are arranged in advance so that a single opening can serve multiple purposes.
submitter (hash)
The first six hexadecimal characters of the SHA-256 hash of the submitter's identifying information, where any was provided. Where no information was provided, the field is recorded as REDACTED.
superseded record
A withdrawn record whose place has been taken by a successor under a fresh accession identifier. The withdrawal note carries the superseding identifier and the superseded classification.

V

vault
A storage compartment within the registry's premises. Vaults are designated by single uppercase letters (A, B, C, D); shelves and drawers carry two-digit codes, yielding a storage location of the form vault-shelf-drawer.

W

withdrawal
The act of removing a record from active circulation while preserving its accession identifier. Withdrawals are recorded in the public withdrawn-records index together with the ground for withdrawal.

Suggestions for additional entries should be addressed to the standing registrar via the contact channel listed in methodology. Definitions adopted into the glossary are listed in the next bulletin (see the bulletin archive).