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About the Fossil Distribution Plots

How to plot fossil distributions:
  1. Introduction
  2. Data Sources
  3. Enter Data into the Form
    1. Search String
    2. Search Type
    3. Plot occurrences/non-occurences
  4. Plotting the data into a plate tectonic reconstruction
  5. Download TIF and PS Files
  6. Bugs
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1. Introduction

The Fossil Distribution Plotting Service (FDPS) is intended to plot maps with DSDP/ODP sites, where specific fossils occur or not occur. You may enter search data into a form, and choose the output. The data is then searched for the fossilnames and a world map is plotted. The style of the maps is very simple, only the Equidistant Cylindrical projection is available and only the whole world can be viewed. No zoom into the map is possible. However, the data can be exported to the plate tectonic mapping system, to plot more sophisticated maps.
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2. Data sources

The data on DSDP-holes used for plotting the maps originates from the DSDP CD-roms available from the NGDC/Boulder (CO). This data was transformed into lists, which are searched each time a new map is plotted. Data is also available for several ODP-holes. Holes of legs 104, and 112 - 144 are searched. These were taken from the downloadable excel sheets at the janus/tamu www site. Shoreline data is from GMT/ Soest (Hawaii).
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3. Enter Data into the Form

Only few data has to be entered to plot distribution maps.
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3a. Search String

The data will be searched for this string(s). There are several options to enter search data:
  • Simply enter the name of the fossil you want to search for (i.e. discoaster). There is no distinction between upper and lowercase letters, hence Discoaster equals discoaster.
  • If you want to search for more than one fossil, enter the list of names separated by "space"-characters (i.e. discoaster reticulofenestra ...).
  • To search for a fossil by genus and species, or if the search string contains a "space"-character, put the complete names in double quotes (i.e. "discoaster surculus").
If you didn't find the fossil you were searching for, check the spelling carefully! This is one of the most likely reasons for errors.
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3b. Search Type

The search type defines, how multiple search strings are connected. If you choose AND and enter two fossil names, any site will be selected (positive result), which contains both of the mentioned fossils. Any site which contains only one or none of them is not selected (negative result).

If you choose OR and enter two fossil names, any site that contains either one or the other fossil will be selected (positive result), and only the sites containing neither one will not be selected (negative result).

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3c. Plot occurrences/non-occurences

Here you specify, which sites you want to get plotted, positive results, negative results or both. Positive means that the search result was positive and the fossil(s) or combination of fossils were found. Negative means, that the fossil(s) or the combination of fossils were not found. Positive sites are allways plotted as green dots, negative sites are allways red dots.
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4. Plotting the data into a plate tectonic reconstruction

As you generated a plot, you might notice a often 4 or 5 digit number above the map, called your job-number. This number is the link of the generated data to the data in the plate tectonic mapping system. If you want to plot these sites into a plate tectonic reconstruction of any age, you have to do the following: Please note, that the "Plot DSDP/ODP" feature is internally disabled if you try to plot a previous fossil distribution job.

ATTENTION! Data is stored for about one hour only! This means, that you will be able to plot those data into paleo maps for about one hour after you generated the distribution map. Replot the distribution map if necessary. Note that you get a different job number if you replot your map!

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5. Download TIF and PS Files

It is possible to download copies of the maps in Postscript and TIFF format for further use. Simply click the link to download the file. Calculated maps are stored for about 1 hour on the server (no guarantee).

Postscript files are in color, and can be printed on any Postscript printer. Some Programs are able to process Postscriptfiles. We have had good experience with Corel Draw Versions 5.0 and later on Computers running Windows (3.11, 95 or NT). Corel Draw allows you to import the files, and store them in vector format. This offers the possibility of completely modifying and reworking the files in the most convenient way, maintaining very high quality. I don't know if there are other programs which allow PS to vector conversion other than Corel Draw. I would be very interested to become to know other possibilities, if someone found any.

If you are a Mac User, I'd suggest you use Adobe Illustrator to edit the postscript files. However, many people find Illustrator difficult to use. The only possibility I know to convert the postscript file into a vector format is to try to find somebody with Corel Draw, who can save the imported file in CGM-format. Be sure to use the "standard" option. In most cases, these files can be opened in Mac Programs such as Canvas or MacDraw as well. For Canvas and many other programs, it may be important to change the filetype with ResEdit or FileBuddy to CGMF. Also - be sure you have loaded the necessary CGM-filter to interpret the file. You can load the filter with Canvas by pressing the space-bar during startup, and selecting the filter in the upcoming menu.

You might also want to transform the PS-file to a bitmap using GhostScript. GS offers various output formats, like PCX, TIFF, BMP and others. It's available on the web for most platforms like Unix, Windows, Mac, OS/2, so there shouldn't be a problem to aquire a copy. Just ask one of the www-search-machines.

If none of these work for you, try the TIFF-file. This is a 300 dpi black/white LZW-compressed TIFF. Unfortunately not all graphics programs support TIFF compression formats, but an uncompressed picture would be more than 1MB in size, and hard to download (GEOMAR's internet connection so far is not part of the so called data-superhighway). However, this TIFF file was sucessfully loaded with Photoshop, Corel Photopaint and several other applications.

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6. Bugs

So far there are no known bugs.
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Questions or Comments? Please send mail to the ODSN-Webmaster Thank you!
Page last modified: Sunday, 29-May-2011 21:42:59 CEST