For over 50 years, cores recovered from ocean basins have generated fossil, lithologic, and chemical archives that have revolutionized fields within the earth sciences. Although scientific ocean drilling (SOD) data are openly available following each expedition, the formats for these data are heterogeneous. Furthermore, lithological, chronological, and paleobiological data are typically separated into different repositories, limiting researchers' abilities to discover and analyze integrated SOD data sets. Emphasis within Earth Sciences on Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) Data Principles and the establishment of community‐led databases provide a pathway to unite SOD data and further harness the scientific potential of the investments made in offshore drilling. Here, we describe a workflow for compiling, cleaning, and standardizing key SOD records, and importing them into the Paleobiology Database and Macrostrat, systems with versatile, open data distribution mechanisms. These efforts are being carried out by the extending Ocean Drilling Pursuits (eODP) project. eODP has processed all of the lithological, chronological, and paleobiological data from one SOD repository, along with numerous other data sets that were never deposited in a database; these were manually transcribed from original reports. This compiled data set contains over 79,899 lithological units from 1,125 drilling holes from 422 sites. Over 26,000 fossil‐bearing samples, with 5,378 taxonomic entries from 13 biological groups, are placed within this lithologic spatiotemporal framework. All information is available via GitHub and Macrostrat's application programming interface, which renders data retrievable by a variety of parameters, including age, site, and lithology.
Observed correlation between the depth to base and top of gas hydrate occurrence from review of global drilling data: GLOBAL INVENTORY OF HYDRATE DRILLING
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Abstract -
The Plio-Pleistocene regional mass extinction of molluscan fauna of Florida and the US Atlantic coastal plain was followed by a period of rapid origination, resulting in similar modern regional species richness. Predator and prey relationships were impacted by high extinction rates across all taxa. Previous studies have suggested that the extinction is associated with a possible system-wide decline in predation intensity, but data from additional prey species both prior to and after the extinctions are needed to determine how general this pattern may be. We examined predatory trace fossils on turritellid gastropods, a clade which experienced substantial extinction during this time. Overall rates of peeling predation on turritellid gastropods across the extinction boundary decreased – with turritellid species having an average peel-repair frequency of 0.41 in the Plio-Pleistocene compared to a frequency of 0.16 in modern samples. However, in the two surviving lineages, Turritella perexilis and Torcula exoleta, peel-repair frequency was similar in the Plio-Pleistocene samples and in modern samples. Fossil T. perexilis had a peel frequency of 0.26, compared to the modern samples’ peeling frequency of 0.14. Fossil T. perattenuata had a peeling frequency of 0.18, while its descendant, T. exoleta, had a peeling frequency of 0.17. Additionally, the incidence of multiple attacks in modern samples is markedly lower. While a majority (89%) of turritellid species went extinct during this event, most fossil species had higher peel-repair frequencies than fossils of the surviving lineages. In contrast with peeling frequency, the frequency of drilling predation on modern descendants is higher than their fossil ancestors (0.21 vs 0.02 and 0.14 vs. 0.11 for T. exoleta/T. perattenuata and T. perexilis, respectively). Across all species, drilling increased from an average of 0.11 in the Plio-Pleistocene samples to 0.19 in modern samples. These results suggest that as turritellid prey diversity decreased, predators may have adapted to attack surviving species, or these lineages may have become more vulnerable to their predators.more » « less
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Paleoanthropologists have long speculated about the role of environmental change in shaping human evolution in Africa. In recent years, drill cores of late Neogene lacustrine sedimentary rocks have yielded valuable high-resolution records of climatic and ecosystem change. Eastern African Rift sediments (primarily lake beds) provide an extraordinary range of data in close proximity to important fossil hominin and archaeological sites, allowing critical study of hypotheses that connect environmental history and hominin evolution. We review recent drill-core studies spanning the Plio–Pleistocene boundary (an interval of hominin diversification, including the earliest members of our genus Homo and the oldest stone tools), and the Mid–Upper Pleistocene (spanning the origin of Homo sapiens in Africa and our early technological and dispersal history). Proposed drilling of Africa's oldest lakes promises to extend such records back to the late Miocene. ▪ High-resolution paleoenvironmental records are critical for understanding external drivers of human evolution. ▪ African lake basin drill cores play a critical role in enhancing hominin paleoenvironmental records given their continuity and proximity to key paleoanthropological sites. ▪ The oldest African lakes have the potential to reveal a comprehensive paleoenvironmental context for the entire late Neogene history of hominin evolution.more » « less
