PALEOSTRAT.COM - INTERNET TOOLS FOR THE CHRONOSTRATIGRAPHY [THE PENNSYLVANIAN-CISURALIAN (EARLY PERMIAN)]

PaleoStrat.com - is a prototype information system for sedimentary, paleontologic, biostratigraphic and stratigraphic data. PaleoStrat is a part of the larger “GeoVision” system hosted at Boise State University, but with partners at the different US and overseas Institutions. Although PaleoStrat is primarily being developed as a tool for documenting type sections for the geologic time scale, it is also being designed to help tectonostratigraphic, basin analysis, taxonomic, phylogenetic, sequence stratigraphic, and other studies that address a variety of questions about the evolution of earth systems. PaleoStrat will also provide a significant impetus for future research on a variety of issues such as: extinction and speciation processes, global correlation, refinement of the Carboniferous-Permian time scale, paleoclimatology, space-time pattern of the assembly of Pangaea, and numerous issues of regional interest in upper Paleozoic geology. Design of the PaleoStrat system started in 1998, but it has not been feasible until the recent NSF funding. It is envisioned that the PaleoStrat system can serve as a component of a larger, national (and indeed international) database (CHRONOS, GEON, GERM etc.) and that the tools we develop will be universally applicable to a wide variety of geoscience research. Specifically, we are trying to build a suite of Web-based tools that will: 1) Allow all interested researchers located anywhere in the world access to a high-resolution multitaxa biostratigraphic data set. 2) Provide an interactive, graphical tool for visualizing the physical stratigraphy of these sections in order to document and correlate patterns of relative sea-level change and to document breaks in the stratigraphic section. 3) Incorporate high-precision U-Pb zircon geochronology from volcanic ashes to provide optimum age-control on period and stage boundaries. 4) Provide a regional and interregional correlation of the proposed/potential stratotype sections with other sections to initiate the process of global correlation; and provide users the opportunity to extend this assessment via an on-line graphic correlation tool. 5) Make all of these data interactively available on the Web, with a mirrored site at the USGS to ensure perpetual availability of the data. The project supported by NSF grants EAR 0106796 and EAR-ITR 0218799.