The CHRONOS System: geoinformatics for sedimentary geology and paleobiology (original) (raw)
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The CHRONOS System: geoinformatics for sedimentary geology and paleobiology>sup<*>/sup<
2005 IEEE International Symposium on Mass Storage Systems and Technology, 2005
Traditionally, scientists have captured data on the history of Earth processes in the printed literature where the data sets, by the nature of the medium, are incomplete. The answer to this "information bottleneck" is geoinformatics, a revolution that is migrating information to more readily retrievable electronic formats. The CHRONOS System is a community facility that addresses the geoinformatics needs of sedimentary geology and paleobiology, emphasizes global correlation and time-series analysis, and directly supports cutting-edge research on topics that include the evolution and diversity of life, climate change, geochemical cycles, and many other aspects of the Earth system. The CHRONOS System provides simultaneous and seamless integration of hosted and federated databases with analytical and visualization tools. CHRONOS exploits software advances for translating between different data structures and terminologies to achieve interoperability within a distributed data management system.
Computers & Geosciences, 2009
CHRONOS's purpose is to transform Earth history research by seamlessly integrating stratigraphic databases and tools into a virtual on-line stratigraphic record. In this paper, we describe the various components of CHRONOS's distributed data system, including the encoding of semantic and descriptive data into a service-based architecture. We give examples of how we have integrated well-tested resources available from the opensource and geoinformatic communities, like the GeoSciML schema and the simple knowledge organization system (SKOS), into the services-oriented architecture to encode timescale and phylogenetic synonymy data. We also describe on-going efforts to use geospatially enhanced data syndication and informally including semantic information by embedding it directly into the XHTML Document Object Model (DOM). XHTML DOM allows machine-discoverable descriptive data such as licensing and citation information to be incorporated directly into data sets retrieved by users.
[PDF] The future of the past in the present: biodiversity informatics and geological time
The biological and palaeontological communities have approached the problem of informatics separately, creating a divide between communities that is both technological and sociological in nature. In this paper we describe one new advance towards solving this problem -expanding the Scratchpads platform to deal with geological time. In creating this system we have attempted to make our work open to existing communities by providing a webservice of geological time data via the GBIF Vocabularies site. We have also ensured that our system can adapt to changes in the definition of geological time intervals and is capable of querying datasets independently of the format of geological age data used.
The future of the past in the present: biodiversity informatics and geological time
ZooKeys, 2011
The biological and palaeontological communities have approached the problem of informatics separately, creating a divide between communities that is both technological and sociological in nature. In this paper we describe one new advance towards solving this problem -expanding the Scratchpads platform to deal with geological time. In creating this system we have attempted to make our work open to existing communities by providing a webservice of geological time data via the GBIF Vocabularies site. We have also ensured that our system can adapt to changes in the definition of geological time intervals and is capable of querying datasets independently of the format of geological age data used.
EARTHTIME: A community-based effort towards high-precision calibration of earth history
Geochmica et Cosmochimica Acta
Geological time is customarily treated as an "independent variable"; deductions and conclusions are made assuming that the geological timescale as given is precise and accurate. Current geological timescales are based on data of variable quality, commonly averaging dates obtained by different techniques, with differing (though often ignored) absolute uncertainties. Consequently, the greatest uncertainty in most analyses of geologic and evolutionary rates is the timescale itself. Recent advances in geochronology and correlation methods now allow us to reframe research into the timing and rates of geological and biological processes in deep time, producing a newly calibrated geological timescale with significantly improved accuracy and precision standards commensurate with new and emerging geochronologic and chronostratigraphic methodologies. To address these issues the EARTHTIME initiative has been proposed as a new community-based effort to focus attention on the calibration of at least the last 800 million years of earth history. This will allow earth scientists to address a whole new series of questions that rely on knowledge of precise rates of biological, geological, and climatic change.
DateView: a windows geochronology database
Computers & geosciences, 2004
DateView is a freeware desktop database system for the structured storage and retrieval of geochronological information. It provides a user-friendly interface for constructing queries based on information in the database so as to extract information on specific units, isotope systems, age interpretations, provinces, terranes, reference sources and many other characteristics which geochronologists and geologists might require. Once a subset of the records in the database has been selected, users may choose from several forms of graph so as to better visualise the data. Available graphs include probability histograms, age versus initial ratio or epsilon, and age versus closure temperature. Simple locality (latitude vs longitude) graphs are also available. Grouping of data by interpretation or age interval in the graphs is user customizable. The database may also be shared with colleagues on an intranet. r $ Code on server at http://www.iamg.org/CEEditor/ index.htm Ã
We propose a realignment of the terms geochronology and chronostratigraphy that brings them broadly into line with current use, while simultaneously resolving the debate over whether the Geological Time Scale should have a "single" or "dual" hierarchy of units: Both parallel sets of units are retained, although there remains the option to adopt either a single (i.e., geochronological) or a dual hierarchy in particular studies, as considered appropriate. Thus, geochronology expresses the timing or age of events (depositional, diagenetic, biotic, climatic, tectonic, magmatic) in Earth's history (e.g., Hirnantian glaciation, Famennian-Frasnian mass extinction). Geochronology can also qualify rock bodies, stratified or unstratified, with respect to the time interval(s) in which they formed (e.g., Early Ordovician Ibex Group). In addition, geochronology refers to all methods of numerical dating. Chronostratigraphy would include all methods (e.g., biostratigraphy, magnetostratigraphy, chemostratigraphy, cyclostratigraphy, sequence stratigraphy) for (1) establishing the relative time relationships of stratigraphic successions regionally and worldwide; and (2) formally naming bodies of stratified rock that were deposited contemporaneously with units formally defined at their base, ideally by a GSSP (Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point = "golden spike") that represents a specific point in time.