A tool for visualizing paleo data in virtual reality.
How do paleontologists know where to dig? Three criteria define the choice of location for exploration:
- The rock must be sedimentary.
- The sedimentary rock must be exposed on the earth's surface.
- The sedimentary layer must be between 250 - 65 million years old
It also should not have been explored too much.
The question is:
What additional data could be pulled in to support paleontologists in justifying the worthiness of exploratory digs in different locations to potential grantors, thereby supporting their grant-writing process?
Example question: The Gobi Desert is a well-known and high-yielding paleontolological site from the late Cretaceous period. The Hell Creek Formation in Montana, US is also well-investigated, sits at 107 Long, 47 30" Lat, fairly similarly to the Gobi site, and is also late Cretaceous. Do they also share historical climatological or other geological similarities?
2nd sample question: Both the Gobi desert and Hell Creek formations have had many digs. However, has either site experienced a recent weather (or other) related event that has perhaps exposed a new layer of sedimentary rock that could be explored for new fossils?
All data is taken from The PaleoBiology Database.
This listing contains all the fields/codes for accessing data related to these topics:
- Lists of fossil collections API
- Geographic clusters of fossil collections API
- Lists of geological strata API
- Geographic clusters of fossil collections API
- Stratigraphy of fossil occurrences API
- Fossil diversity over time (full computation) API Calls
- Taxonomy of fossil occurrences API
- Client configuration API
Please see the presentation link in the Wiki.
Currently, the app pulls data from the PaleoBioDB and displays the number of fossils found within 5 degrees on the globe for any two locations in a bar graph. Future work could expand upon the representation of the data and pull in additional data from other collections on related issues:
- historical and recent weather history
- geological formations
- strata information
- historical climate/environmental data