DEVELOPMENT OF AN ONLINE DATABASE WITH GIS CONNECTIONS FOR VERTEBRATE AND OTHER FOSSILS Justin Woods and Art Chadwick

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DEVELOPMENT OF ANONLINE DATABASEWITHGIS
CONNECTIONSFOR VERTEBRATE AND OTHER
FOSSILSJustin Woods and Art Chadwick
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GPS/GIS Technology

• New Technology for mapping bones in the quarry
  using high-resolution GPS equipment.
• GPS data is combined with digital photos of bones
  in the computer.
• The bones can then be seen in the computer just
  as they looked in the ground, but with the dirt
  removed.

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GPS Base
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GPS Rover
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GPS Precision
h
E543859.994 0.002m
N
N4815099.919 0.003m
Elevation 1244.944 0.006m
1cm2
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North Quarry 2000
h
N
f 1 m g
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North Quarry 2001
h
N
f 1 m g
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North Quarry 2002
h
N
f 1 m g
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North Quarry 2003
h
N
f 1 m g
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North Quarry 2004
h
N
f 1 m g
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North Quarry 2005
h
N
f 1 m g
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North Quarry
h
N
Erosional surface below bed
f 1 m g
Not yet excavated
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Expanded view from previous slide

• Note the long ossified tendon visible in the
  center just above the femur. It is ¼ inch in
  diameter.
• Femur is 50 inches long, for comparison

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Database Schema

• Conceptual model of the structure of a database
  that defines the data contents and relationships
• Two Broad Categories
• Normalized
• Un-normalized

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Un-Normalized

• One Huge Table
• Data repeated row-to-row
• Data-entry errors difficult to prevent
• No logical linkage between related data
• Memory-intensive
• Slow data access

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Normalized

• Several smaller, interlinked tables
• No data repetition
• Data-entry much less error-prone
• Logical linkage between related data enables
  advanced analysis

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DiGIR ProtocolDistributed Generic Information
Retrieval

• Taxonomic Databases Working Group (TDWG) has
  proposed Darwin Schema to facilitate
  dissemination of information about biological
  organisms
• Protocol for disparate biological databases to
  exchange data easily

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DiGIR ProtocolDistributed Generic Information
Retrieval

• Our fully-normalized database will easily
  integrate with DiGIR / Darwin
• Protocol still in draft stage
• When it is finalized, our project will adopt it
  so that our data is as accessible as possible

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Online Fossil Database

• Catalog of approximately 7000 fossil specimens,
  currently
• Each has multiple high-resolution photographs
  online
• Each has full GPS position data online
• Each can be visualized in the quarry using GIS
  data
• Fully searchable

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Conclusion

• Fully-normalized database schema improves
  quality, availability of data
• GPS / GIS / Specimen Collection integration
  provides wealth of data not otherwise accessible
• The data are there, the possibilities are endless

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Visit Us Online!

• Online Fossil Catalog
• http//geology.swau.edu/fossil/
• Dinosaur Project
• http//dinodig.swau.edu/
• For more information
• Email justin_at_woodsmedia.com
• chadwick_at_swau.edu