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--- automation [14/03/2023 18:52] – mike_gss
+++ automation [05/05/2023 12:34] (current) – mike_gss
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-==== Recording and managing data – automation in biostratigraphy ====
+==== Recording and Managing Data – Automation In Biostratigraphy ====
 The sheer volume of data generated by biostratigraphers is extensive. Either generated academically or commercially, the data are stored digitally within numerous software platforms ranging from the simple spreadsheet to complex bespoke databases which include tools for well- or section- management, correlation, chart production and data analysis. There are also extensive web-based facilities which contain useful information on fossil classification and distribution (see list of sources at the end of this manual).
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+//The digital storage of biostratigraphical data only “got going” in the late 1980’s. The key database software, StrataBugs, came out of BP in the 1990’s. It is used by almost all Biostrat consultancies and many E&P companies that have biostratigraphers. RagWare & BugWare are primarily used by US based biostratigraphy consultancies. Biostratigraphical data interpretation software used in the industry stem from the Technical Alliance for Computation Stratigraphy (TACS) project run at EGI, Utah by Tony Gary.//
 Academics (in the loose sense) tend to be interested in the classification and evolutionary history of a particular set or subset of organisms and their biology/paleobiology and ecology. Commercial workers tend to be more interested in the stratigraphic limits of individual species or genera and their paleoenvironmental significance because of the value of this kind of data to exploration & production issues. The two are not mutually exclusive but there can be apparent disagreements – especially among industrial workers – on taking a strict “academic” approach over a “pragmatic” one. Consequently, different tools have evolved for different purposes but both can be very useful.
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 Achieving taxonomic consistency in datasets is also a prerequisite to the development of automation in biostratigraphy, with age-determination, paleoenvironmental analysis and multiwell correlation all possible with current computing capabilities. As long, of course, as the data attributes (the names/taxonomy and the biostratigraphic and environmental limits) are correctly assigned and consistently applied.
-Data sets held by operating companies can be huge. The data may already have been interpreted “on paper” and indeed, data could potentially be re-interpreted (by a “thinking biostratigrapher”) at any future point. However, with more volumes of data becoming available and fewer and fewer biostratigraphers available to work with the data, the need for automation in biostratigraphic interpretation becomes clear. One promising approach towards automation in biostratigraphy would be to combine a “species dictionary” which deals with taxonomic issues, synonyms, an agreed geological age-range for individual species and genera and environmental descriptors, with an “occurrences database” where sequenced biostratigraphic data is stored in a geospacially-enabled, palinspastically-reconstructed virtual volume (see Figure 4).
+Data sets held by operating companies can be huge. The data may already have been interpreted “on paper” and indeed, data could potentially be re-interpreted (by a “thinking biostratigrapher”) at any future point. However, with more volumes of data becoming available and fewer and fewer biostratigraphers available to work with the data, the need for automation in biostratigraphic interpretation becomes clear. One promising approach towards automation in biostratigraphy would be to combine a “species dictionary” which deals with taxonomic issues, synonyms, an agreed geological age-range for individual species and genera and environmental descriptors, with an “occurrences database” where sequenced biostratigraphic data is stored in a geospacially-enabled, palinspastically-reconstructed virtual volume.
+{{ :automation.jpg?nolink |}}
+//A possible route to automation in biostratigraphy using a "species dictionary" and an occurrence database.//