_____ Dear Friends and Colleagues: We're pleased to announce the release of Neotoma Explorer 2.0, a new interface for searching, exploring, and obtaining paleoecological data stored in the Neotoma Paleoecology Database: http://www.neotomadb.org/ Neotoma Explorer has been re-engineered from the ground up to provide more flexible, easier, and full-featured access to the Neotoma Paleoecology Database through modern Web browsers. Explorer 2.0 uses the publicly available Neotoma Application Programming Interface (API; http://api.neotomadb.org) to search and extract the most current data available via REST-ful web services. An entirely new JavaScript and HTML application, Explorer is built with free and open source Dojo and OpenLayers libraries making it more easily extended and customized compared to previous versions. Our goal for 2.0 has been to deliver the same functionality available in the current Explorer plus many usability enhancements and bug fixes. We are adopting a rapid release cycle to deliver new functionality, enhancements, and bug fixes monthly. Our issue tracker and development roadmap are publicly available at the following URLs: https://bitbucket.org/cei/neotomaexplorerjs/issues and https://bitbucket.org/cei/neotomaexplorerjs/wiki. We encourage your participation and feedback. In addition, all Neotoma data can now be accessed from R using the neotoma package developed by Simon Goring and colleagues: http:/www.github.com/ropensci/neotoma We are also developing new tools to facilitate the contribution of data to Neotoma. In the meantime, if you are interested in contributing your paleoecological data to Neotoma, please contact Eric Grimm ([log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> ) or visit http://www.neotomadb.org/data/category/contribution Please give the new Explorer a try and send us your feedback. Again, that's: http://www.neotomadb.org/ Thanks. Sincerely, Brian Bills and Mike Anderson, Developers Russ Graham, Eric Grimm, Alison Smith, Jack Williams, Simon Goring, et al., Scientists