- History of NEPTUNE
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- The NEPTUNE database project was initiated in 1990 when a
group of biostratigraphers at the ETH Zurich started compiling
stratigraphic information of DSDP holes for macroevolutionary
studies in the Cenozoic. In its initial stage it was conceived
and led by Dave Lazarus in collaboration with some veterans from
the DSDP (Jean-Pierre Beckmann, Katharina von Salis, Hans Thierstein)
and ETH staff and students (Milena Biolzi, Jörg Bollmann,
Heinz Hilbrecht, Cinzia Spencer Cervato). A series of conceptual
publications describing NEPTUNE appeared during that time (Lazarus,
1992; Lazarus,
1994), and after 5 years the technical phase resulted in
a stratigraphic synthesis for Neogene sediments from 94 DSDP
holes (Lazarus
et al., 1995). The numerical age models, upon which NEPTUNE
was based, followed the chronology of Berggren
et al. (1985a and b)
and included magnetochronology, calcareous nannofossils, planktonic
foraminifera, radiolaria and diatoms. This collection of age
models, together with the necessary applications for Macintosh
Computers (Age-Depth Plot Program ADP 1.0) is on-line available
at the National
Geophysical Data Center under the URL http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/geology/lazarus.html.
-
- Between 1995 and 1999, the project entered a scientific analysis
phase, during which NEPTUNE was exploited for macroevolutionary
studies of the oceanic plankton in the Cenozoic. These investigations
included topics like species richness, species evenness, longevity,
speciation- and extinction-rates, biogeography, migration and
studies on synchrony and diachrony of nannofossils, foraminifers,
diatoms, radiolaria) in the Cenozoic. This work was done by Cinzia
Spencer-Cervato, Bernard Brabec, Heinz Hilbrecht, and Hans Thierstein,
who have re-calibrated all existing age models in NEPTUNE to
the new integrated chronology, that just had appeared at that
time (Berggren
et al., 1995). Spencer-Cervato
(1999) revised age models, icluded more recent ones from
ODP holes and so extended the NEPTUNE database, and described
the Neptune database in detail in Paleontologica Electronica
under the URL http://palaeo-electronica.org/1999_2/neptune/issue2_99.htm
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- At about the same time, the Natural History Museum in Basel
(NMB), who runs one of the Micropaleontological Reference Centers
for the DSDP and ODP (URL for the MRCs: http://iodp.tamu.edu/curation/mrc.html),
became interested in using NEPTUNE and the age model collection
in order to have an efficient tool to date the vast amount of
DSDP and ODP samples in their collections. Collaboration between
the ETH group and the NMB (Michael Knappertsbusch), who continued
compiling stratigraphic information from the range charts of
the Initial and Scientific Reports of the DSDP and ODP. The ongoing
work resulted in an expanded collection of numerical age models
covering holes of the DSDP and the ODP up to Leg 175, that are
all magnetically calibrated against the chronology of Berggren et al. (1995). Next to the basic
four planktonic microfossil groups (i.e. calcareous nannofossils,
planktic foraminifera, diatoms and radiolaria) other other useful
stratigraphical markers were tentatively integrated, such as
bolboforma, O-isotopes, Sr-isotopes, new magnetic events, so
that more refined age models can be produced. The collaboration
between the NMB and the ETH group resulted in the installation
of the Neptune server at ETH Zürich, so that the relational
database Neptune and the age models were online available to
the scientific community.
-
- Since 2004 the Neptune-online server at ETH was no longer
supported and was abandoned. At about the same time the relational
Neptune database was migrated into the international Chronos initiative, a geoscience cyberinfrastructure
to access Earth history databasaes, including stratigraphic tools
such as ADP among others, and services, implemented in Chronos'
web-based and platform-independent Java environment (see Bohling, 2005).
-
- Original versions of ADP and adapted versions of ADP for
PC environment, however, are still in use for numerical age model
construction at the Natural History Museum in Basel. These efforts
include the construction and updating of the age model collection
as needed for datation of samples and for own research on a case
by case basis. In order to share these age models with other
interested researchers, the updated age model collection were
re-installed as a download site at the University in Basel and
are occasionally updated.
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- For a historical review of NEPTUNE, its follow-up products
and further development until 2020 please refer to Renaudie, Lazarus and Diver (2020).