Fossil Sites Explorer
Every fossil site on your map, explained.
Searches the Paleobiology Database for fossil sites in any area and explains each one: its rocks, formation, depositional environment, age and ancient latitude, and every fossil found there with a description, images, time range, ecology and a reference library.
Overview
Start with a fossil group: eighteen guide cards explain what ammonites, rudists, nummulites, foraminifera, corals and other groups are, where they lived, why geologists use them and where they occur in Iraq. Then search the visible map or a rectangle, optionally limited to a geological age.
The results are summarised in plain language and in three explained charts (records by period, main groups, ancient environments). Each site opens a card that reads the record for you: where it is, which formation and rock type, which environment, how old, where it lay on the globe at the time, the publication, and the fossils found there. Each fossil opens its own card with Wikipedia text (Arabic when available), Wikimedia Commons images, classification, time range, ecology, a worldwide map and links to PBDB, Google Scholar, the Biodiversity Heritage Library, GBIF and WoRMS.
What you enter · What you get
What you enter
- Fossil group or any taxon name (optional)
- Geological age (optional)
- Search area
What you get
- Guide card for each fossil group
- Plain-language summary and explained charts
- Site cards: rocks, environment, age, palaeolatitude, fossils, reference
- Fossil cards: description, images, range, ecology, worldwide map, library
- CSV and GeoJSON export
How it works in the field
Method and equations
Data sources
Sites and records: Paleobiology Database data service (data1.2), CC BY 4.0, with palaeocoordinates from the GPlates model. Descriptions: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Images: Wikimedia Commons, each under its own free licence; silhouettes: PhyloPic via PBDB.
Who uses it
Standards and references
- The Paleobiology Database, paleobiodb.org (CC BY 4.0).
- Peters, S.E. & McClennen, M. (2016). The Paleobiology Database application programming interface. Paleobiology, 42(1), 1–7.
- Müller, R.D. et al. (2018). GPlates: building a virtual Earth through deep time. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, 19, 2243–2261.
- Armstrong, H.A. & Brasier, M.D. (2005). Microfossils, 2nd ed. Blackwell.
- Jassim, S.Z. & Goff, J.C. (eds) (2006). Geology of Iraq. Dolin, Prague.
At a glance
- Category
- Field geology
- Runs on
- Phone, tablet and desktop browser
- Export
- CSV, GeoJSON
- Access
- Subscribers
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