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Creating A PALEONICHES: Difference between revisions
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→Digitization PEN: Paleoniches on the western Cincinnati arch, the Ordovician of Indiana
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== PENs == | == PENs == | ||
=== Digitization PEN: Paleoniches on the | === Digitization PEN: Paleoniches on the Western Cincinnati Arch, the Ordovician of Indiana === | ||
This project will make one of the key Ordovician fossil collections in the nation digitally accessible for research and public use. The Ordovician Period was the second greatest period in the history of animal life, about 485 to 444 million years ago. The diversity of life increased remarkably during the Ordovician Period until the mass extinction event at the end of the Period. The Indiana University Paleontology Collection has systematically documented fossil records of 10 million years leading up to the extinction, including a series of fossils that were collected in the early 1900s when a new railway grade was cut through Indiana's Ordovician rocks along Tanner's Creek near Cincinnati. The fossils in the Ordovician collection document the migration of ancient marine organisms in response to changing sea level, demonstrate evolutionary adaptation to changing environments, and reveal ecological interactions that help explain why some groups survived the extinction and others did not. Digitizing the collections makes this material accessible for large-scale quantitative scientific studies. Importantly, digitization also makes these incredible fossils available to students, teachers, and fossil enthusiasts in Indiana, across the nation, and around the world. This project will involve K-12 teachers in developing school curriculum exercises based on the fossils and on the digitization process. It will also engage the region's avocational paleontological community in the digitization initiative, giving them unprecedented access to the same fossil research collections used by scientists. | This project will make one of the key Ordovician fossil collections in the nation digitally accessible for research and public use. The Ordovician Period was the second greatest period in the history of animal life, about 485 to 444 million years ago. The diversity of life increased remarkably during the Ordovician Period until the mass extinction event at the end of the Period. The Indiana University Paleontology Collection has systematically documented fossil records of 10 million years leading up to the extinction, including a series of fossils that were collected in the early 1900s when a new railway grade was cut through Indiana's Ordovician rocks along Tanner's Creek near Cincinnati. The fossils in the Ordovician collection document the migration of ancient marine organisms in response to changing sea level, demonstrate evolutionary adaptation to changing environments, and reveal ecological interactions that help explain why some groups survived the extinction and others did not. Digitizing the collections makes this material accessible for large-scale quantitative scientific studies. Importantly, digitization also makes these incredible fossils available to students, teachers, and fossil enthusiasts in Indiana, across the nation, and around the world. This project will involve K-12 teachers in developing school curriculum exercises based on the fossils and on the digitization process. It will also engage the region's avocational paleontological community in the digitization initiative, giving them unprecedented access to the same fossil research collections used by scientists. | ||