- What is NEPTUNE-oline II ?
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- NEPTUNE-online
II is the successor of the former
NEPTUNE-online
server and represents a collection of updated and standardized,
chronostratigraphic datums including first- and last appearance
datums of planktonic microfossils, magnetic polarity reversals,
and stable isotope datums reported in the initial and scientific
reports of the DSDP and ODP. All listed datums were magnetically
converted and follow the integrated geochronology of Berggren et
al. (1995).
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- NEPTUNE-online
II includes microfossils like calcareous nannofossils,
planktic foraminifera, diatoms, radiolarians, bolboforma, d18O isotope stages Sr isotopes,
and, where available from radiometric ages read from the initial
and scientific reports of the DSDP and ODP up to Leg 199. Most
of the age models cover the Cenozoic, but there is was an increasing
number of Mesozoic datums added as well.
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- This biostratigraphic synthesis emerged from the continued
effort of biostratigraphic data compilation from DSDP and ODP
reports, that was initiated in 1990 by the micropaleontology
group at ETH in Zürich, Switzerland, and continued later
by workers at the Natural History Museum in Basel (see History). Until 2004, the NEPTUNE-online server resided at ETH in Zürich,
where it was designed as a dual system consisting of an on-line
relational database (NEPTUNE) and a numerical age model and data
collection. The database solution was embedded in a "4th
Dimension (4D)" environment and allowed access to over 8000
species entries of planktonic microfossils for synonymy checks.
The numerical age model collection included stratigraphic data
from over 600 holes of the DSDP and ODP, that could be downloaded.
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- These models were constructed using the interactive graphical
tool Age Depth Plot (ADP) and dating tool Age
Maker (AM) written by Dave Lazarus, and which can
also be downloaded. The templets used to generate the age models
represent a global synthesis of available micropaleontological
events scattered in the DSDP and ODP reports, standardized to
the Berggren et al. (1995) time scale. They are also available
for download.
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- The NEPTUNE-online server
at ETH is no longer available, although parts of the installation
was incorporated into the Chronos stratigraphic information facility.
By 2013 and through the continued efforts of Dave Lazarus at
the MRC Berlin and his colleagues much of the information was
transferred to the Neptune Deep-Sea Microfossil Occurrence Database,
now accessible from the Global
Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). Nevertheless, and
despite integration into Chronos, much useful information and
software is no longer available since the close-down of NEPTUNE-online at the ETH server.
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- In order to make templets, core-data, age models, and age
modeling software further available to earth scientists, the
age model collection of the former NEPTUNE-online
server was re-uploaded in 2005 as NEPTUNE-online
II on this server in Basel. Since then, selected - limited
in number - DSDP and ODP age models were added in the framework
of own research.
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- For a historical review of NEPTUNE, its follow-up products
and further development until 2020 refer to Renaudie, Lazarus and Diver (2020).