THE EARTHTIME NETWORK: Developing an Infrastructure for High-Resolution Calibration of Earth History

我们所知道的关于生物进化、严重气候变化的事件、海洋和大气的演变的大部分信息都记录在地质记录中。然而，任何一个地理区域的地质记录都是不完整的。因此，为了建立一个详细的地球历史，我们必须结合化石记录和岩石年代测定（地质年代学），将整个地球的记录整合起来。在过去的二十年里，我们确定岩石年龄的能力有了显著的提高，计算的不确定性已经从大约1%降低到0.1%。随着精确度的提高，有机会探索时间上的微小差异，以及实验室和不同地质年代学技术之间的微小但系统的差异。这些差异绝不威胁到技术的有效性，而是一种从未被认为可能达到的精确程度的结果。利用高精度地质年代学进一步了解地球历史的一个必要步骤是建立协调的基础设施和必要的分析设施，以便在未来十年实现至少对过去8亿年地球历史的高分辨率“排序”。我们建议发展一个网络基础设施，即地球时间网络，它将在分析协议和标准报告方面联合世界各地的地质年代学实验室，这样我们就可以消除或进一步减少实验室和技术之间的小系统差异。我们将把这与一项积极的教育和公众宣传计划结合起来，重点关注地球科学家和普通公众。我们的目标是了解我们的星球在过去45.6亿年里所经历的变化，以便更好地预测我们的未来。

EAR-0451802BowringMuch of what we know about biological evolution, episodes of severe climate change, and the evolution of our oceans and atmospheres is recorded in the geological record. However, geological records in any one geographical area are incomplete. Thus, to establish a detailed history of the planet we must integrate records from across the entire planet using a combination of the fossil record and the dating of rocks (geochronology). Our ability to determine the age of rocks has improved dramatically over the past twenty years and calculated uncertainties have been reduced from about 1% to 0.1 %. With increased precision has come the opportunity to explore very small differences in time and small but systematic differences between laboratories and different geochronological techniques. These differences by no means threaten the validity of the techniques but are a consequence of a level of precision never thought possible. A necessary step in the further development of understanding earth history using high-precision geochronology is the establishment of a coordinated infrastructure and analytical facilities necessary for the achievement of high-resolution "sequencing" of at least the last 800 million years of earth history in the next decade. We propose to develop a cyberinfrastructure, the EarthTime Network, that will unite geochronology labs around the world in terms of analytical protocol and the reporting of standards so that we will eliminate or further reduce small systematic differences between labs and techniques. We will combine this with an aggressive program of education and public outreach focused on both earth scientists as well as the general public. Our goal is to understand the changes our planet has undergone over the past 4.56 billion years so as to better predict our future.