Workshop 1: Chronos Online

Wednesday, 18 March, 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm 

Facilitators: Brian Huber and Mark Leckie 

Location: Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Computer Lab

Professionals: $35
Students: $15
(Maximum Enrollment 24 -- ONLY 3 SEATS AVAILABLE AS OF 3/5 )

CHRONOS is a geoinformatics initiative developed to assemble, integrate and distribute stratigraphic data relevant to Earth history (see www.chronos.org). The ultimate goal of CHRONOS is to facilitate research and public outreach on any topic in Earth history and on any part of the geologic time scale, and it provides a valuable resource that aids a wide variety of research, including time scale construction, paleoenvironmental analysis, paleoclimatology, paleoceanography, paleotectonics, and evolution. Following an overview of the CHRONOS platform, this workshop will focus on how to access and use new tools and databases that have been developed for biostratigraphy and taxonomy and are downloadable from the CHRONOS web site. The databases and tools that will be discussed include (1) online taxonomic atlases for Cretaceous-Eocene planktonic foraminifera; (2) the Neptune DSDP-ODP marine microfossil database, which contains global, quality-controlled micropaleontology and stratigraphy datasets from DSDP-ODP publications and can be used for taxonomic, biogeographic, and evolution research; (3) the graphic correlation tools CONOP (constrained optimization) and ADP (age-depth profiler); and (4) the PSICAT program (Paleontological Stratigraphic Interval Construction and Analysis Tool, which is a stand-alone Java based graphical editing tool for creating and viewing stratigraphic column diagrams from drill cores and outcrops. All of the CHRONOS tools and access to databases are available online and at no cost to the research community.

Workshop 2: TsCreator and TsCreator Pro

Thursday, 19 March, 8:30 am – 11:30 am 

Facilitators: Felix Gradstein, Jim Ogg, and Adam Lugowski

Location: Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Computer Lab

Professionals: $35
Students: $15
(Maximum Enrollment 24 -- ONLY 4 SEATS AVAILABLE AS OF 3/5 )

The TS-Creator © database and visualization package lets the user create onscreen and downloadable charts of any portion of the geologic time scale with a choice of bio-magneto-chemo-sequence and other events and trends of Earth History (see www.tscreator.org).

Such scales summarize our current consensus on the inter-calibration of events, their relationships to international divisions of geologic time and their estimated numerical ages. 

In addition to screen views and a scalable-vector graphics (SVG) file for import into popular graphics programs, the on-screen display has a variety of display options and “hot-curser-points” to open windows providing additional information on events, zones, boundaries, paleogeographic maps, pdf documents and stratigraphic databases of several geological surveys. The database and visualization package are a reference tool, chart-production assistant, and a window into the geologic history of our planet.  The package is being progressively enhanced through the efforts of stratigraphic and regional experts with the creation of over a dozen digital stratigraphic datapacks for specific basins and regions.  

The new JAVA program (TS-Creator version 4), tutorial-exercises and the needed datapacks are mounted in the TimeScale Creator website, and on the NAMS II shortcourse computers. For the tutorial/exercise we will use two or three datapacks that are oriented towards microfossil stratigraphy. We trust that course participants will find the exercises interesting; eventually, we welcome feedbacks on the clarity of the tutorial portion and the exercises. 

Workshop 3: Multivariate Analysis of Microfossil Data

Thursday, 19 March, 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm 

Facilitator: Anthony Gary

Location: Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Computer Lab

Professionals: $35
Students: $15
(Maximum Enrollment 24 -- ONLY 5 SEATS AVAILABLE AS OF 3/5 )

This workshop is an introduction and overview of pattern detection (recognition) methods that are applicable to microfossil data.  Topics discussed will include: 1) the purpose of multivariate pattern detection and methodological requirements; 2) data and feature selection; 3) the structure of information; and 4) an overview of pattern detection methods, including cluster, classification, ordination and semantic.  The focus of the workshop will be on the appropriateness of the methods for particular classes of problems, the assumptions inherent to the methods, discussion of their implementation (high-level), and selected examples of their application.  The workshop format will include lecture, discussion and limited application of software.