A Geographical Information System (GIS) study of Triassic vertebrate biochronology

2005 ◽  
Vol 142 (4) ◽  
pp. 327-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. J. RAYFIELD ◽  
P. M. BARRETT ◽  
R. A. McDONNELL ◽  
K. J. WILLIS

Geographical Information Systems (GIS) have been applied extensively to analyse spatial data relating to varied environmental issues, but have not so far been used to address biostratigraphical or macroevolutionary questions over extended spatial and temporal scales. Here, we use GIS techniques to test the stability, validity and utility of proposed Middle and Late Triassic ‘Land Vertebrate Faunachrons’ (LVFs), a global biostratigraphical framework based upon terrestrial/freshwater tetrapod occurrences. A database of tetrapod and megafloral localities was constructed for North America and Western Europe that also incorporated information on relevant palaeoenvironmental variables. This database was subjected to various spatial analysis techniques. Our GIS analysis found support at a global level for Eocyclotosaurus as an Anisian index taxon and probably Aetosaurus as a Norian indicator. Other tetrapod taxa are useful biostratigraphical/biochronological markers on a regional basis, such as Longosuchus and Doswellia for Late Carnian time. Other potential index fossils are hampered, however, by taxonomic instability (Mastodonsaurus, Metoposaurus, Typothorax, Paleorhinus, Pseudopalatus, Redondasaurus, Redondasuchus) and/or are not clearly restricted in temporal distribution (Paleorhinus, Angistorhinus, Stagonolepis, Metoposaurus and Rutiodon). This leads to instability in LVF diagnosis. We found only in the western Northern Hemisphere is there some evidence for an Anisian–Ladinian biochronological unit amalgamating the Perovkan and Berdyankian LVFs, and a possible late Carnian unit integrating the Otischalkian and Adamanian.Megaplants are generally not useful for biostratigraphical correlation in the Middle and Upper Triassic of the study area, but there is some evidence for a Carnian-age floral assemblage that corresponds to the combined Otischalkian and Adamanian LVFs. Environmental biases do not appear to strongly affect the spatial distribution of either the tetrapods or megaplants that have been proposed as index taxa in biostratigraphical schemes, though several examples of apparent environmental bias were detected by the analysis. Consequently, we argue that further revision and refinement of Middle and Late Triassic LVFs is needed before they can be used to support global or multi-regional biostratigraphical correlations. Caution should therefore be exercised when using the current scheme as a platform for macroevolutionary or palaeoecological hypotheses. Finally, this study demonstrates the potential of GIS as a powerful tool for tackling palaeontological questions over extended timescales.

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fatemeh Hashemi Amin ◽  
Mahtab Ghaemi ◽  
Sayyed Mostafa Mostafavi ◽  
Ladan Goshayeshi ◽  
Khadijeh Rezaei ◽  
...  

Abstract Objectives Gastric cancer (GC) is a multifactorial disease and the fifth most frequent diagnosed cancer worldwide. It accounts for one third of cancer-related mortalities. Geospatial analysis using geographical information systems (GIS) can provide an efficient solution to identify spatial disparities associated with GC. As such, GIS enables policymakers to control cancer in a better way and identify the regions where interventions are needed. This study aims to publish a comprehensive dataset, which was applied to conduct a spatial analysis of GC patients in the city of Mashhad, Iran. Data description We provide a personal geodatabase, a Microsoft Access database that can store, query, and manage both spatial and non-spatial data, which contains four feature classes. “Male_Stomach_Cancer_Patients” and “Female_Stomach_Cancer_Patients” are point feature classes, which show the age and geographical location of 1156 GC cancer patients diagnosed between 2014 and 2017. “Air_Polution_Mashhad” is another point feature class that reveals the amount of six air pollutants, which was taken from Mashhad Environmental Pollutants Monitoring Center between 2017 and 2018. Finally, “Stomach_Cancer_and_Risk_Factors” is a polygon feature class of neighborhood division of Mashhad, consisting of contributor risk factors including dietary habits, smoking, alcohol use, body mass index and population by age groups for all 165 city neighborhoods.


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Georgiou ◽  
Dimitrios Skarlatos

Abstract. Among the renewable powers sources, solar is rapidly becoming popular being inexhaustible, clean, and dependable. It is also becoming more efficient since the photovoltaic solar cells' power conversion efficiency is rising. Following these trends, solar power will become more affordable in years to come and considerable investments are to be expected. Despite the size of solar plants, the sitting procedure is a crucial factor for their efficiency and financial viability. Many aspects rule such decision; legal, environmental, technical, and financial to name some. This paper describes a general integrated framework to evaluate land suitability for the optimal placement of photovoltaic solar power plants, which is based on a combination of a Geographic Information System (GIS), remote sensing techniques and multi-criteria decision making methods. An application of the proposed framework for Limassol District in Cyprus is further illustrated. The combination of GIS and multi-criteria methods, consist an excellent analysis tool that creates an extensive database of spatial and non spatial data that will be used to simplify problems, to solve and promote the use of multiple criteria. A set of environmental, economic, social and technical constrains based on recent Cypriot legislation, European's Union policies and experts' advices, identifies the potential sites for solar park installation. The pair-wise comparison method in the context of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is applied to estimate the criteria weights in order to establish their relative importance in site evaluation. In addition, four different methods to combine information layers and check their sensitivity were used. The first considered all the criteria as being equally important and assign them equal weight, while the others grouped the criteria and graded them according to their objective perceived importance. The overall suitability of the study region for sitting solar park is appraised through the summation rule. Strict application of the framework depicts 3.0 % of the study region scoring best suitability index for solar resource exploitation, hence minimizing risk of a potential investment. However, using different weighting schemes for criteria, suitable areas may reach up to 83 % of the study region. The suggested methodological framework applied can be easily utilized by potential investors and renewable energy developers, through a front end web based application with proper GUI for personalized weighting schemes.


Author(s):  
Kivanc Ertugay ◽  
Sebnem H. Duzgun

Accessibility measures are generally concerned with equity and a better distribution of services in a territory and can be accepted as key variables for supporting supply/demand, location/allocation and service/catchment area related planning policies and strategies at national, regional, and local levels. Since accessibility measures need organization of huge and complex spatial data sets, accessibility modeling often lends itself to Geographical Information Systems (GIS) for analysis and presentation. Since numerous accessibility measures and modeling techniques ranging from simple to sophisticated can be found in the literature, this work aim to provide an overview of the theoretical framework and relevant background about GIS-based accessibility modeling process. The results could provide a significant support for the decision makers who are supposed to deal with transportation planning, accessibility modeling, location/allocation and service/catchment area related issues.


Author(s):  
Kivanc Ertugay ◽  
Sebnem H. Duzgun

Accessibility measures are generally concerned with equity and a better distribution of services in a territory and can be accepted as key variables for supporting supply/demand, location/allocation and service/catchment area related planning policies and strategies at national, regional, and local levels. Since accessibility measures need organization of huge and complex spatial data sets, accessibility modeling often lends itself to Geographical Information Systems (GIS) for analysis and presentation. Since numerous accessibility measures and modeling techniques ranging from simple to sophisticated can be found in the literature, this work aim to provide an overview of the theoretical framework and relevant background about GIS-based accessibility modeling process. The results could provide a significant support for the decision makers who are supposed to deal with transportation planning, accessibility modeling, location/allocation and service/catchment area related issues.


Author(s):  
Markus Schneider

A data type comprises a set of homogeneous values together with a collection of operations defined on them. This chapter emphasizes the importance of crisp spatial data types, fuzzy spatial data types, and spatiotemporal data types for representing static, vague, and time-varying geometries in Geographical Information Systems (GIS). These data types provide a fundamental abstraction for modeling the geometric structure of crisp spatial, fuzzy spatial, and moving objects in space and time as well as their relationships, properties, and operations. The goal of this chapter is to provide an overview and description of these data types and their operations that have been proposed in research and can be found in GIS, spatial databases, moving objects databases, and other spatial software tools. The use of data types, operations, and predicates will be illustrated by their embedding into query languages.


Spatium ◽  
2013 ◽  
pp. 59-67
Author(s):  
Klemen Prah ◽  
Andrej Lisec ◽  
Anka Lisec

Many real-world spatially related problems, including river-basin planning and management, give rise to geographical information system based decision making, since the performance of spatial policy alternatives were traditionally and are still often represented by thematic maps. Advanced technologies and approaches, such as geographical information systems (GIS), offer a unique opportunity to tackle spatial problems traditionally associated with more efficient and effective data collection, analysis, and alternative evaluation. This paper discusses the advantages and challenges of the use of digital spatial data and geographical information systems in river basis management. Spatial data on social, environmental and other spatial conditions for the study area of 451.77 km2, the Slovenian part of the Sotla river basin, are used to study the GIS capabilities of supporting spatial decisions in the framework of river basin management.


Author(s):  
X. Yang ◽  
M. Koehl ◽  
P. Grussenmeyer ◽  
H. Macher

In this paper, we discuss the potential of integrating both semantically rich models from Building Information Modelling (BIM) and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to build the detailed 3D historic model. BIM contributes to the creation of a digital representation having all physical and functional building characteristics in several dimensions, as e.g. XYZ (3D), time and non-architectural information that are necessary for construction and management of buildings. GIS has potential in handling and managing spatial data especially exploring spatial relationships and is widely used in urban modelling. However, when considering heritage modelling, the specificity of irregular historical components makes it problematic to create the enriched model according to its complex architectural elements obtained from point clouds. Therefore, some open issues limiting the historic building 3D modelling will be discussed in this paper: how to deal with the complex elements composing historic buildings in BIM and GIS environment, how to build the enriched historic model, and why to construct different levels of details? By solving these problems, conceptualization, documentation and analysis of enriched Historic Building Information Modelling are developed and compared to traditional 3D models aimed primarily for visualization.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sang-Soo Jeon ◽  
Daeyang Heo ◽  
Sang-Seung Lee

Abstract. Liquefaction causes secondary damage after earthquakes; however, liquefaction related phenomena were rarely reported until after the Mw = 5.4 November 15, 2017 Pohang earthquake in Korea. Both the Mw = 5.8 September 12, 2016 Gyeongju earthquake and Mw = 5.4 November 15, 2017 Pohang earthquake occurred in the fault zone of Yangsan City (located in the south-eastern part of Korea), and both of these earthquakes induced liquefaction. Moreover, they demonstrated that Korea is not safe against the liquefaction induced by earthquakes. In this study, estimations and calculations were performed based on the distances between the centroids of administrative districts and an epicenter located at the Yangsan Fault, the peak ground accelerations (PGAs) induced by Mw = 5.0 and 6.5 earthquakes, and a liquefaction potential index (LPI) calculated based on groundwater level and standard penetration test results from 274 locations in Kimhae City (adjacent to the Nakdong river and across the Yangsan Fault). Then, a kriging method using geographical information systems was used to evaluate the liquefaction effects on the risk levels of facilities. The results indicate that a Mw = 5.0 earthquake induces a small and low level of liquefaction, resulting in slight risk for facilities, but a Mw = 6.5 earthquake induces a large and high level of liquefaction, resulting in a severe risk for facilities.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document