CAREER: Towards a high-resolution quantification of the North American rock record: integrating field data, citizen science, and participatory education for macrostratigraphy

职业生涯：北美岩石记录的高分辨率量化：整合野外数据、公民科学和宏观地层的参与式教育地球岩石包含了我们的大部分物质、能源和水资源，是许多重要物理和生物过程的主要长期档案，其中包括有机演化、全球气候变化的原因和后果、造山和景观演变的速度和风格。虽然关于岩石的分布和特征及其蕴含的资源有大量的知识，但目前还没有框架来综合这些信息，将其放在更大的背景下，或对其进行量化分析。这是不幸的，因为形成和破坏岩石的过程在时间和空间上是不连续的和选择性的，导致地球表面物质的复杂和不均匀分布。宏观地层学使用在不同地理位置单独汇编的岩石包作为整合不同地球科学数据集和定量分析岩石记录的框架。Macrostrat(Macrostrat.org)目前包括北美830个地理位置的21,521个岩石单位的年龄、厚度、一般岩石类型、名称和许多经济用途。这项职业研究将使用Macrostrat目前的数据作为脚手架，在此基础上建立更严格和更完整的关于北美岩石分布、岩石材料特性和岩石资源潜力的知识体系。为完成这项任务，将采取三条战线。首先，将根据文献汇编新地点的数据，并将其输入Macrostrat数据库。其次，将在Macrostrat上建立一个强大的新网络应用程序，这将使国家地质调查、学术机构和能源行业的地质学家能够参与其中。最后，将用文献和实地的最新数据更新现有地点。由此产生的新数据汇编不仅将使提案中概述的关于碳埋藏和沉积模式的地质史的具体假设得到检验，而且还将成为描述现有资源的平台，并在地球科学的许多领域形成新的新一代问题。了解岩石今天发生在哪里以及它们在地球历史上形成的时间对地球科学和资源发现是如此关键，因此很难高估收集关于岩石记录的新的、全面的量化数据，然后通过直观和位置感知的网络应用程序公开这些数据的更广泛的影响。建立这种网络应用程序的动机源于这样一个事实：(1)许多主要的野外观测具有很大的分析价值，特别是与宏观地层背景相结合；(2)许多没有受过科学培训的公民往往对他们周围的环境感到好奇；(3)当为他们自己的观测提供基于位置的背景时，几乎任何人，包括学生和参与其中的公民，都可以产生某些类型的地质实地数据。该项目最重要的最终成果之一将是一套新的研究和教学工具，能够满足专业地质学家的需求，同时更有建设性地让学生和“公民科学家”参与科学进程。

CAREER: Towards a high-resolution quantification of the North American rock record: integrating field data, citizen science, and participatory education for macrostratigraphyThe Earth's rocks contain most of our material, energy and water resources and they serve as the primary long-term archive for many important physical and biological processes, including organic evolution, the causes and consequences of global climate change, and rates and styles of mountain building and landscape evolution. Although there exists a large body of knowledge on the distribution and character of rocks and the resources they contain, there is currently no framework for consolidating this information, for placing it into a larger context, or for analyzing it quantitatively. This is unfortunate because the processes that form and destroy rocks are discontinuous and selective in time and space, resulting in a complex and heterogeneous distribution of materials at Earth's surface.Macrostratigraphy uses rock packages compiled separately at different geographic locations as a framework for integrating diverse Earth science data sets and for quantitatively analyzing the rock record. Macrostrat (macrostrat.org) currently consists minimally of the ages, thicknesses, general rock types, names, and many economic uses for 21,521 rock units from 830 geographic locations in North America. This CAREER research will use the data currently in Macrostrat as a scaffolding upon which to build a much more rigorous and complete body of knowledge on the distribution of rocks, their material properties, and their resource potential here in North America. A three-front approach will be taken to accomplish this task. First, data for new locations will be compiled from the literature and entered into the Macrostrat database. Second, a powerful new web application will be built upon Macrostrat and this will be used to enable the participation of geologists at state geological surveys, academic institutions, and the energy industry. Finally, existing locations will be updated with modern data from the literature and the field. The resultant new data compilation will not only enable the specific hypotheses concerning the geological history of carbon burial and patterns of sedimentation outlined in the proposal to be tested, but it will also serve as a platform for characterizing existing resources and formulating a new generation of questions in many domains of Earth science.Knowing where rocks occur today and when they formed in Earth history is so central to geoscience and resource discovery that it is hard to overestimate the broader impacts of assembling new, comprehensive quantitative data on the rock record and then making those data publicly accessible via intuitive and location-aware web applications. The motivations for building such web-applications stem from the fact that (1) many primary field observations are of great analytical value, particularly in combination with macrostratigraphic context, (2) many citizens who are not trained in science are nevertheless often curious about their immediate environment, and (3) some types of geological field data can be produced by nearly anyone, including students and engaged citizens, when they are provided with location-based context for their own observations. One of the most important end results of this project will be a new set of research and teaching tools that can serve needs of professional geologists while at the same time more constructively engaging students and 'citizen scientists' in the scientific process.