Geological Society of America

T267 Time Machine: Earth’s Deep-Time Geography—Data, Reconstructions, Challenges

Wednesday, 18 October 2023
1:30 PM - 5:30 PM
320

ONLINE DATABASES OF GEOLOGIC FORMATIONS OF ASIA AND AFRICA, WITH DISPLAY ONTO PLATE RECONSTRUCTIONS

Paper number: T267-4
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 2:20 PM – 2:35 PM

Authors

Wen Du Presenting Author
International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS), Kunshan, Jiangsu
Masahiko Makino
AIST, Tsukuba
James Ogg
International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS), Kunshan, Jiangsu
James Ogg
Institute of Sedimentary Geology, Chengdu
Hongfei Hou
Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, Beijing, IN
Gabriele Ogg
West Lafayette, IN
Suyash Mishra
Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN
Yuzheng Qian
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
Sabrina Chang
Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN
Haipeng Li
International Union of Geological Sciences, Kunshan, Jiangsu
Linna Zhang
Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology and Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenviroment, Nanjing, Jiangsu

Abstract

Building paleogeographic maps requires team efforts to compile databases of regional sedimentary and volcanic facies, to validate and update information, and to develop visualization and computer projection methods. During the past decade, we have worked with experts on regional geologic systems to assemble cloud-based detailed lexicons of geologic formations within Asian regions (chinalex.geolex.org; vietlex.geolex.org; japanlex.geolex.org; qatar.geolex.org; etc.; ca. 5000 formations as of May 2023), within African regions (nigerlex.geolex.org; ca. 200 formations; and a generalized africalex.geolex.org), and to compile a detailed grid of outcrops and borehole stratigraphic-biostratigraphic columns for much of China (the Geobiodiversity Database or GBDB;:www.geobiodiversity.com; over 25,000 sections).

In addition to standard search criteria (age, region, lithology keywords, etc.), the user interfaces include map-based and stratigraphic-column navigation. The returned entries be displayed by-age or in alphabetical order. Many of the formation details include GeoJSON-formatted polygons of its regional extent. These enable plotting of the individual formations filled with their appropriate lithologic facies patterns onto any of three proposed plate reconstruction models with a single click. Or, if a geologic age is specified, a user can query all the linked regional databases to plot the locations of all formations (with lithologic facies patterns) that span that age onto a plate reconstruction model. (Du et al., 2023, Geoscience Data Journal, in press). The GBDB database has been used to produce very detailed isopach and paleogeographic depositional-facies reconstructions of South China for each Ordovician stage (Zhang et al., 2023, Earth-Science Reviews, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2023.104400).

Our team is working with the teams at Macrostrat (Univ. Wisconsin (Madison) and with other geologic surveys to interlink their regional facies-time compilations for other global regions. The goal is to users to access the information on any geologic formation, and to obtain a view of the sediments and volcanics that were accumulating at any time on the ancient Earth.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 55, No. 6

doi: 10.1130/abs/2023AM-389330

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