The rock record contains a diverse array of natural resources and is the primary source of information for much of the geosciences; it is also a complex spatio-temporal mosaic that is structured by a diverse array of tectonic and climatic processes. Understanding and quantifying the fine-scale temporal and spatial architecture of the rock record is important for two primary reasons. First, rigorous quantification will reveal detailed information about how the processes that govern the formation and destruction of rock bodies have changed over time. Second, quantifying the rock record will make it possible to overcome the biasing effects of discontinuous and non-random preservation of earth history. This proposal develops a new process-based approach to quantifying the rock record that is grounded on one simple principle: at a particular geographic location, the entire geologic record consists of gap-bound packages of rock that formed continuously at any given scale of temporal resolution. Thus, compiling the temporal ranges and lithological characteristics of gap-bound packages allows the geologic record to be rapidly and precisely quantified in a way that captures critical environmental and geological dynamics. The specific objectives of the proposed research are to 1) enhance the temporal and environmental resolution of a comprehensive database of gap-bound rock packages in the U.S.A. that has already been preliminarily compiled from the Correlation of Stratigraphic Units of North America by the PI, 2) expand this database to include comparable data for the entire geologic record of Canada, 3) map more than 240,000 North American fossil occurrences directly into the temporal and spatial structure of the rock record using the NSF-funded Paleobiology Database (PBDB: http://paleodb.org) and GIS technology, and 4) make available to researchers, students, and the general public a new and comprehensive geologic database that is searchable via the world wide web using any open standards-compliant web browser. The primary scientific goals of these research objectives include: 1) rigorously quantifying the history of environmental change, as recorded by the sedimentary rock record of North America, in both the marine and terrestrial realms, 2) quantifying the habitat-specific history of animal evolution within the context of environmental changes recorded by sedimentary rocks, and 3) distinguishing between two alternative hypotheses that are consistent with the numerous quantitative similarities that have been documented between the rock and fossil records, thereby enhancing our understanding of the geologic and environmental factors that have contributed to the origination and extinction of animal taxa over the past 542 million years.
