Collaborative Workshop: An Internet Resource for Integrating Plate Tectonic and Paleogeographic Mapping with On-line Earth Science Databases

Northwestern University, Evanston IL

Investigators

Abstract

Collaborative Workshop: An Internet Resource for Integrating Plate Tectonic and Paleogeographic Mapping with On-line Earth Science Databases Scott Lidgard, Melanie Hopkins, Field Museum of Natural History?EAR-1141839 Bradley Sageman, Northwestern University?EAR-1141841 ABSTRACT This workshop will begin the process of developing a community wide, web-based resource that tells Earth's story and provides the earth science community with a research tool that researchers can use to "see how their data fits" into the grand story of Earth System evolution. Workshop participants will discuss how to build such a dynamic internet resource. The focus of the workshop is to create an internet resource that integrates plate tectonic, paleogeographic and paleoclimatic mapping with existing and potential future on-line Earth Science databases (e.g., The Paleobiology Database, GeoStratSys, COSUNA database, PALYNODATA [palynology], USGS mineral database, GlobalGeology, and others). Such a system would provide scientifically-accurate, publicly accessible maps of the changing configuration of the continents and ocean basins back through time (~ 1 billion years). The plate tectonic history of the Earth provides the spatial-temporal framework required to better understand the evolution of life, the shift of global climate from Ice House to Hot House conditions, changes in the circulation and chemistry of the oceans, and the reshaping of the Earth's land surface. This will be the first such effort at developing a community-wide system/network in which all relevant subdisciplines can participate in and benefit from its results. This has come about because Chris Scotese freely contributes for use up front his non-proprietary web-based library of paleogeographic maps developed over the last 40 years through his work with industry and in part supported by NSF.