DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION OF AN EFFICIENT, ACCESSIBLE ONLINE MUSEUM SITE AND DATABASE WITH OPEN ACCESS

A paleontological digitization project underway for 15 years in Wyoming’s Lance Formation, has amassed a significant amount of geo-referenced dinosaur fossil data, which is publicly-accessible via the project’s website (http://fossil.swau.edu). Over the past 15 field seasons, over 17,000 dinosaur fossils have been recovered, their three-dimensional positions recorded with sub-centimeter accuracy using real-time kinematic GPS systems. Images of these specimens are geo-referenced to their positional data, and rendered in a number of formats for further study.

The project’s website makes all metadata for each of the 17,000 specimens fully and rapidly searchable, utilizing a fully-normalized database schema comprised of over 40 tables. The website allows the position of any specimen or group of specimens to be plotted on a high-resolution rendering of the quarry.

Additionally, each specimen is imaged from 32 angles and presented in a photographic quality 3D image, preserving minute details. Complex searches can be done on all categories of information, and the results rendered in a suitable format for research applications.

Taken together, these features enable serious study of the collection by anyone in the world, including those without physical access to the collection.