the oldest remaining material is old. Older sediments are also more prone to corruption by diagenesis. This is due to the millions of years of disruption experienced by the rock formations, such as pressure, tectonic activity, and fluid flowing. These factors often result in a lack in quality or quantity of data, which causes resolution and confidence in the data decrease over time.

Specific techniques used to make inferences on ancient climate conditions are the use of lake sediment cores and speleothems.