CHRONOS - A TIME-CALIBRATED NETWORK OF FEDERATED DATABASES AND TOOLS FOR SEDIMENTARY GEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY

Earth system history research depends increasingly upon the analysis of voluminous, multidisciplinary, time-calibrated data. CHRONOS is a community resource dedicated to making available these data, together with a toolkit to analyze and visualize them, to the broad geoscience community, the public, K-16 students and educators, policy-makers, and the media. This international interactive network of paleobiology, biostratigraphy, radioisotope geochronology, and sedimentary geochemistry data is made accessible through a common portal (www.chronos.org), is a node on the Geoscience Network’s GRID (www.geongrid.org), and has been funded by the National Science Foundation since August 2003.

CHRONOS and its partners are working to provide a comprehensive information network related to the evolution and diversity of life, climate change, geochemical cycles, paleoceanography, geodynamical processes, and other aspects of the Earth system. The bulk of the data is currently contained in three main networked databases: PaleoStrat (www.paleostrat.org) is the sample-based database engine for terrestrial stratigraphic data; Neptune is CHRONOS's database for age-calibrated marine plankton occurrences from DSDP and ODP cores; PaleoBiology (www.paleodb.org) is a federated database containing global, collection-based occurrence and taxonomic data for fossil animals and plants. Currently under development is a sedimentary geochemistry information system in collaboration with the emerging SedDB project, IODP, and GeoSystems. CHRONOS is also pursuing active collaborations with paleontologists and paleontological societies to upgrade, develop, and network digital databases for taxonomic information for all fossil groups at the species level.

CHRONOS is partnering with Tapestry of Time, the Smithsonian Institution, AGI, NAGT, NESTA, USGS, EARTHTIME, and geoscience educators to develop educational resources that 're-humanize' scientific discoveries that have led to our current understanding of Earth history, and virtual reality applications aimed at conveying the concept of deep time and visualizing the processes involved in some of the most significant milestones in the history of Earth.