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2015 GSA Annual Meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, USA (1-4 November 2015)

Paper No. 35-11
Presentation Time: 9:00 AM-5:30 PM

DIGITIZATION, RESEARCH TOOL, AND EDUCATIONAL WEBSITE: THE VIRTUAL SILURIAN REEF, A MODEL FOR STREAMLINE WEB DEVELOPMENT USING A DATABASE


MAYER, Paul S.1, COOROUGH BURKE, Patricia2, HERBST, Pete3, WEBBINK, Kate3, LAMBRUSCHI, Marc3 and GRANT, Sharon3, (1)Science and Education, Field Museum of Natural History, 1400 South Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, IL 60605-2496, (2)Geology Department, Milwaukee Public Museum, 800 West Wells Street, Milwaukee, WI 53233, (3)Technology Department, The Field Museum, 1400 S. Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, IL 60605, pmayer@fieldmuseum.org

The Milwaukee Public Museum in partnership with the Field Museum is nearing completion of a 3-year IMLS sponsored project to digitize Silurian fossils of the upper Midwest. The first goal of this project is to produce an online database for researchers to search collections at both institutions. Over 34,000 specimen and locality records and 40,000 images from the MPM and FMNH have been added to a shared EMu database that is accessible online. Shared between the institutions in the database are 12,500 taxonomic records, 2,998 lithostratigraphic records, and 1,853 chronostratigraphic records.

The second goal is to revise and update the Virtual Silurian Reef (VSR) website. The VSR is an educational outreach website designed for middle school students and teachers. It explains the significance of these fossil reefs that were the largest biological structures and the richest biodiversity communities the world had produced up until this time. It uses these fossils as a tool to introduce concepts of evolution, plate tectonics, environmental change, and measuring biodiversity through time.

The Virtual Silurian Reef website has been redesigned with all the data stored in the EMu collections management software, and the previous websites structure has been mapped to EMu’s Narratives Module. The webpages are generated from the database using the IMu EMu API. This simplifies the process of web development. The IMu API connects a field in EMu to a location on a web page allowing any update in EMu to be publish directly to the website. From the data entry to final website product, this approach can help save time and effort while making collections and research more accessible to the public.

Session No. 35--Booth# 178

T70. Digital Technology in Real and Virtual Geoscience Experiences (Posters)
Sunday, 1 November 2015: 9:00 AM-5:30 PM
Exhibit Hall (Baltimore Convention Center)
Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 47, No. 7, p.110
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