SGER: Development and Provision of Critical Triassic Marine Faunal Data to the Paleobiology Database: A Unique Opportunity Within a Limited Time Frame

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ABSTRACT The Paleobiology Database (PBDB) represents a remarkable collaboration among numerous individuals in the paleontological community to assemble already-existing Phanerozoic data for large-scale syntheses to address major paleobiological problems. With its application of informatics approaches, the Paleobiology Database represents one of the most novel initiatives in recent paleobiological studies. However, individuals with the necessary experience and knowledge to assemble meaningful data for the Triassic are rare, so that the PBDB currently has a critical Triassic data gap. The convergence of three senior Ph.D. students at USC during the summer of 2004 who are experienced with the Triassic provides a unique opportunity to fill this gap. Provision of graduate research assistant funds for the summer of 2004 through a SGER grant will allow the PBDB to take advantage of this opportunity. This effort to fill the Triassic data gap will ensure the timely development and utilization of the PBDB, which will produce results of great benefit to the paleontological community at large. Furthermore, participation in this project will provide these students additional experience with new informatics approaches, which will allow them to adopt this forefront methodology in their future research and teaching. This will assist not only the overall direction of Earth science research, but of science in general through their anticipated future teaching activity as professional Earth scientists.