Tetrapod GIS databases
A palaeontologist from the Museum engages in excavating 380- million-year-old tetrapod fossils during an expedition to Latvia.
Geographical Information Systems (GIS) have frequently been used to analyse spatial data relating to environmental issues, but have not yet been used to address biostratigraphical or macroevolutionary questions over extended spatial and temporal scales. We have utilised a novel application of GIS, using these techniques to test the stability, validity and utility of Middle and Upper Triassic ‘Land Vertebrate Faunachrons’ (LVFs), a proposed set of global biostratigraphical units based upon the occurrences of terrestrial/freshwater tetrapod taxa (Rayfield et al. 2003, 2005; Willis et al. 2003).
During this project, databases of tetrapod and megafloral localities were constructed for North America and Western Europe, which also incorporated information on relevant palaeoenvironmental variables. These databases were subjected to various spatial analysis techniques and thus form the basis for the abovementioned study. These databases can be regarded as Supplementary Information for this publication and may be downloaded as Excel spreadsheets.
North American Triassic tetrapods Excel (357.5 KB)
Western European Triassic tetrapods Excel (337.5 KB)
The databases were compiled by Dr Emily Rayfield while in receipt of a Post-Doctoral Research Assistantship at the University of Oxford (Department of Zoology). Funding was provided by a NERC Small Grant (NER/B/S/2001/00900) awarded to Dr Paul Barrett (NHM) and Dr Kathy Willis (Oxford).
References
Rayfield E J, McDonnell R, Barrett PM & Willis KJ, 2003. Testing Triassic vertebrate biostratigraphy: a GIS approach. 324-327. In Wood, J. (ed.). Proceedings of the GIS Research UK 11th Annual Conference. City University, London.
Rayfield EJ, Barrett P M , McDonnell RA & Willis K J, 2005. A Geographical Information Systems (GIS) study of Triassic vertebrae biochronology. Geological Magazine, 142, 327-354
Willis K, Rayfield E, Barrett P M & McDonnell R, 2003. An investigation of Triassic Land Vertebrate Faunachrons (LVFs) using Geographical Information Systems (GIS). Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 23(3 – suppl.), 110A-111A.