A WEB-BASED DATABASE OF THE PALEONTOLOGICAL SPECIMENS FROM THE FLORISSANT FOSSIL BEDS

More than 1700 species of fossil plants and insects have been described from the Florissant fossil beds. These organisms have been referenced in more than 380 publications over the past 130 years. Many of the original fossil specimens have been spread throughout museums in the United States and Great Britain. The National Park Service recognized a need to document all of these specimens in order to make them widely accessible, and a web-based database was developed to integrate publication and taxonomic information with the museum collections information. The database contains not only information on the specimens, but it also includes detailed photographs of each specimen and digital copies of much of the early literature on the fossils of Florissant.

The website is composed of three main databases. The first is the museum collections database in which all catalog and publication information on each specimen is housed. A researcher can find information such as who collected the specimen, what institution holds the specimen, what its catalog number is, what its type status is, and what publications have referenced the specimen. The specimens are then linked to the two other databases in the website. The taxonomic portion of the website gives updated taxonomic information for each specimen based on modern concepts. The bibliography portion of the database gives all the various publications in which the specimens have been cited up to 2002. Use of the website is directed mainly at professionals who are researching the specimens, and the museums at which they are housed. Information from the database currently is being utilized to create an interactive website for the National Park Service to educate the public on the types of fossils found at Florissant as well as the diversity of ancient life that once lived there.