Meet FRED: The world’s 1st-ever, almost total fossil database
Fossils in the FRED database period types and time. (Image credit: GNS Science)
New Zealand is the only nation on the planet that has a basically total, open-access database of its recognized fossil record.It's existed for nearly 80 years, starting in 1946 as a filing cabinet packed with paper kinds at the New Zealand Geological Survey. The job was the effort of Harold Wellman-- the pioneering geologist who notoriously found New Zealand's 370-mile-long Alpine Fault-- and a couple of others dealing with the very first geological mapping of the nation."They desired all set access to all this details in a standardized, available method," stated James Crampton, a paleontologist at Te Herenga Waka-- Victoria University of Wellington. "It was a fantastic concept."The types designated...