Macrostratigraphy and macroevolution in North America: a test of the common cause hypothesis

北美的宏观地层学和宏观演化：对共同原因假说的检验。威斯康星州彼得斯大学;岩石记录包含了大量的自然资源，是地球科学和进化生物学的主要信息来源。 然而，它也是一个复杂的时空马赛克，受到各种各样的构造，气候和生物过程的影响。 理解和量化岩石记录的结构是重要的，主要有两个原因。 首先，这样做将揭示地球系统过程的重要信息，如地质构造和气候，在地质时期发生了变化。 第二，量化岩石的分布和性质将允许不连续和非随机保存地球的可能的偏置效应？历史是要克服的。这项研究将汇编并广泛提供大量未充分利用的地质数据，从而形成关于北美岩石分布和特征的最全面的数据库。 虽然几个重要的地质和古生物学的假设可以解决这些数据，两个主要的科学目标是：1）记录环境的岩石记录和生命的化石记录的定量交叉，和2）测试相对重要性的保存偏见与共享的强制机制驱动的相互关系，已记录的地质和生物数据之间。 为此，将把北美20 000多个已命名岩石单位的数据与古生物学数据库（http：//www.example.com）中目前存在的数万个分类学数据结合起来。paleodb.org 这将产生有史以来第一个能够量化生命历史和物理环境变化的大规模交叉的数据集。 由于这项工作将把重要的实地地质数据汇总到一个具有强大图形用户界面的网络访问数据库中，这项研究的更广泛影响将包括中学到研究生的教育效益，增加公众对地质知识的获取，以及与矿产和石油资源勘探有关的可能经济效益。

Macrostratigraphy and macroevolution in North America: a test of the common cause hypothesisShanan E. PetersUniversity of Wisconsin; EAR-0819931ABSTRACTThe rock record contains numerous natural resources and is the primary source of information for much of geoscience and evolutionary biology. However, it is also a complex spatio-temporal mosaic that has been influenced by a diverse array of tectonic, climatic, and biological processes. Understanding and quantifying the architecture of the rock record is important for two primary reasons. First, doing so will reveal important information about how earth systems processes, such as tectonics and climate, have changed over geologic time. Second, quantifying the distribution and character of rocks will permit the possible biasing effects of discontinuous and non-random preservation of earth?s history to be overcome. This research will compile and make widely available a large amount of under-utilized geological data, resulting in the most comprehensive database available on the distribution and character of rocks in North America. Although several important geologic and paleobiologic hypotheses can and will be addressed with these data, the two principal scientific objectives are to: 1) document the quantitative intersection of the rock record of environments and the fossil record of life, and 2) test the relative importance of preservation biases vs. shared forcing mechanisms in driving the mutual correlations that have been documented between geologic and biologic data. To do this, data for over 20,000 named rock units in North America will be combined with tens of thousands of taxonomic occurrence data currently residing in the Paleobiology Database (http://paleodb.org). This will yield the first data-set ever capable of quantifying the large-scale intersection of the history of life and physical environmental change. Because this work will aggregate important field-based geologic data into a web-accessible database with a powerful graphic user interface, the broader impacts of this research will include educational benefits at the secondary through graduate levels, increased accessibility of geological knowledge to the general public, and possible economic benefits related to mineral and petroleum resource exploration.