Natural Science Forum / Biology / Paleontology / January 2005

T.S.:

In your place, I would search under +museum +(listserve OR listserver) and
then try +paleontology +(listserve OR listserver), selecting the appropriate
results and then posting to those lists. Paleonet is one fine list which you
should direct your attention to.

Regards,

Edward Hennessey

nohalozzyzxnohalo@noyahoo.com - no,no,no.

Measurements, measurements, measurements!

multi-dimensional visualizations of the measurements would be nice.

--RC

"Sometimes history doesn't repeat itself. It just yells
'can't you remember anything I've told you?' and lets
fly with a club.
          -- John W. Cambell Jr.

It should hold the map or utm coordinates where it was found
Stratigraphical information
Description
Where you are holding it in your collection (room, cupboard,
drawer)
Graphics (photo(s) of object or finding place
Name after determination
collector
determinator
sample#

Clearly if all this info would be stored
every record would be large especially
if graphics are contemplated.
Therefore it would be well to
use a DB with linked tables through
an index of the Main table so that
you can have, without wasting space
fossils with 0 images or 10 images.
In the same way you could have
some with and without description.

Security is an issue as well.
You need log-ins with passwords
for users who can only consult
and users that can modify.
When more people can modify
you need record locking
Roll-back of a changing session is
always a good thing.

VB with SQL is what I use
myself

Regs

Joe Rat  8:o)

First of all, you should know that very few serious paleontologists
are active in this newsgroup there days, so you may want to ask
elsewhere as well.

Two places where it would make sense to ask would be museums and
institutes of higher learning -- specifically the geology and/or
paleontology departments.

As for what should go into a data base

1.  Species and genus of specimen (not always known, so while it's a
useful index, it can't be the only one.  And it isn't unique of course
because a collection may contain a number of specimens of the same
critter ... or multiple different critters on the same slab)).  Oh
yes, and maybe Common name as well -- eg. Isurus is the "mako shark".
And some genera and species have two names e.g. Isurus is also called
Oxyrhinus in some older references and collections.

2.  Locality collected.  Coutry; state/province/etc, County, City, one
or two more levels below that.  Ideally there would probably be a
separate data base with coordiantes (maybe multiple as various systems
are used -- UTM, lat-long,range-azimuth from a reference point,
"legal" (range, Section, Township), Directions to the site.  Comments
(e.g. "Narrow outcrop of rotten rock 50 feet up rattlesnake infested
cliff")

3.  Geologic Age(e.g Cambrian), Paleontolgic (e.g. Albertan)
-Formation collected from.  Note that there may be further
subdivisions of fromations -- members and beds/layers within members.
and possibly superdivisions such as Group or Series

4.  Some sort of Reference number

5.  Some sort of  memo field(s) for comments and notes -- possibly
multiple and tied somehow to other fields such as locality and age.

There's surely much more, but I have to get to work  Good Luck