Interactive Map of Many of the Fossils Found On Earth - The Paleobiology Database

[Oxytropidoceras]

Check Out An Interactive Map of Every Dinosaur

Fossil Found On Earth. The map lets you search

by period, taxonomy and strata.

Popular Mechanics, February 24, 2017

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/archaeology/a25395/dinosaur-fossil-map/

 

The PBDB Navigator - Interactive Map

Department of Geoscience

University of Wisconsin-Madison

https://paleobiodb.org/navigator/

 

The Paleobiology Database

https://paleobiodb.org/

 

Yours,

 

Paul H.

[Wrangellian]

This is a fun thing to play with... You can click on the icon that looks like Africa and S. Amer. joined together, and it shows you the continent positions and you can scroll thru time by clicking on the timescale at bottom.

There might be some kinks, though, unless I just haven't figured it out completely yet, but I click on a Cambrian locality in the central Interior of B.C. and it lists "Great Phyllopod Bed, Walcott Quarry..." (location is off).  There is also a Jurassic site apparently way out at sea off Vancouver Island!

[piranha]

The title of this thread is misleading.  Paleobiology Database does not have records for all the published trilobites.  Actually, it's not even close.  

The same is true for the other invertebrates at PBDB.  It's a great concept that still requires many years of data input to achieve that lofty goal.

 

 

 

[piranha]

Here is a follow-up to illustrate my previous point:

 

In the last 3 years 36 new genera of trilobites have been published.  None of them have been recorded at the Paleobiology Database.  Additionally, looking through the entirety of published trilobites, PBDB has numerous omissions of species, localities and mistakes in the cited literature.  Unfortunately, PBDB does not have the budget or human resources to keep up. 

 

 

[jpc]

and it is a misnomer to say that it has every dinosaur ever found.  They attempt to include every published specimen, yes, but as piranha mentioned it is an ambitious huge task, and they do miss some.  But also they don't count every dinosaur ever found...like the stuff private and commercial folks find.  

 

The bones in my garage and displays are not included.  

 

[Oxytropidoceras]

Yes, there are mistakes. I noticed a few in Louisiana. Maybe the the people hosting this database could enlist fossil collectors to check the localities in the state that they fossil hunt in for accuracy and get peple interested in in a specific fossil group, e.g. trilobites, to help them keep current with a specific group. Possibly, such an citizen science effort with some thought could be organized throughout Zooniverse at https://www.zooniverse.org/about

 

Just some thoughts.

 

Paul H.

[Kane]

Some fairly serious geographical errors, too. One site listed for the province of Quebec was smack in the centre of Ontario. In another, a formation was plopped right into a town (with a fairly common name) that shared that name even though there is no formation by that name in that town (instead, it is a recognized unit in different province) . None of the listings in my area are in any way complete, and the omissions are plentiful. That being said, yes, perhaps to circumvent the resources issue it might be a good idea to crowdsource this initiative. The concept itself is a good one, but it desperately needs effective data population and maintenance to function as a key resource. That's a very tall ask for an incredibly ambitious project!

[piranha]

PBDB have not updated any new trilobite species in the last 3 years.  In addition to the 36 new genera I mentioned above, there are actually a total of 214 valid new trilobite species for the years 2014 - 2016 that have not been recorded at PBDB.  Evidently they stopped updating trilobites after 2013.  Sadly, it's not just trilobites, the other invertebrate groups have also not been updated for the last 3 years.  Unfortunately, it appears that PBDB has decided to no longer provide new data for invertebrate paleontology.  After some more investigating I discovered that PBDB does have important priorities.  The dinosaurs, mammals, and miscellaneous reptiles continue to receive updates on a regular basis.  

 

Hopefully PBDB will resolve these problems in the near future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jpc]

It is run by a Vert person, hence the vert bias.  

[Kane]

That may explain it. In one prominent area I collect from, there is an index of over 500+ invertebrate species (listed in a nearly 60 year old catalogue, and many more species have since been added), and the PBDB only lists one of them in an area upriver: a very lonely platyceras (and not too far from there at a provincial park known for its exposures of Devonian-era shales with quite a significantly fossiliferous biodiversity, just one species of crinoid that was the basis of a paper in a 1984 issue of Journal of Paleontology). And then there are the wide, blank gaps on the map that should not be blank... It may as well be labeled with Hic Sunt Dracones. But since dragons would technically be verts, they would most certainly be given priority

 

[piranha]

Wikipedia has been steadily improving over the last few years.  Wikipedia is a much better choice if you want to follow new invertebrate species.  

 

Wikipedia Arthropod Paleontology Year in Review

Wikipedia General Paleontology Year in Review

Wikipedia Molluscan Paleontology Year in Review