Caspian-Black Sea-Mediterranean Corridor during the last 30 ky: sea level change and human adaptation
Work Group 12 ~ Geoinformation System
To combine archaeological, palaeontological, micropalaeontological, bibliographical, radiocarbon, sedimentological, palaeoceanographic data sets with cartographic background into unified constantly updated Geoinformation System.
A Web-database GIS application to consolidate research to date and serve all IGCP 521 work groups. An open application that will allow scientists around the world the ability to preview and publish research data on the Black Sea corridor. A definitive retrospective creating a foundation for contemporary environmental monitoring, observation and education.
Background
Science is able to look back to the origins of human settlement and civilization with ever increasing accuracy and precision. The International Geoscience Programme (IGCP) aims to foster collaboration among scientists from around the world in research projects to advance our understanding of the past and to empower decision making for sustainable futures.
UNESCO IUGS IGCP 521 was initiated to replace speculation with clarity. This project is focused on human adaptation in the face of climate and sea level change along the coasts of history’s most central cultural cross roads – and most fascinating marine basins: the Black Sea.
There is a vast amount of archaeological and geological data on this region, much speculation and numerous conflicting hypotheses about what actually happened, and heretofore no “big picture.”
An interdisciplinary team of scientists from 23 countries, looking back 30,000 years at the Black Sea corridor from the Caspian to the Aegean, aims to remedy this situation.
The Work Group 12 task is to assemble data from Work Groups 1 through 11 to create the “big picture” in high resolution and make this available to the world at large.
How does this project differ from other online database projects?
More often than not data is organized: nationally, or within one discipline, rather than internationally across all relevant disciplines.
More often than not databases have been created as stand alone on one computer and fed by data entry from a finite number of sources, rather than universally accessible and fed by an infinite number of sources.
More often than not, database projects have been built within a specific funding cycle and essentially terminate at that cycle’s end. With no new data, relevance rapidly declines and the database therefore tends to obsolesce.
Database applications for environmental monitoring deal almost exclusively with data and fluctuations from current measurements in the present era and therefore are blind to the historical depth of the archaeological and geological record.
WG 12 takes a longer view at the outset. Researchers require a table where all the pieces of the puzzle – from all sources – can be placed and assembled. Where even unpublished – yet possibly significant – data can be added and contribute to the larger picture.
System design is online for international multi-disciplinary collaboration where any scientist involved in Black Sea research is able to input and archive valid data (that in some instances might otherwise never see the light of day).
System design transcends both the IGCP 521 project and immediate funding cycles by creating an online self-maintaining machine for the collection and dissemination of data. Because data are located by GIS coordinates and age, the database can never obsolesce. Interpretations may change over time, resolution – accuracy and precision – the clarity of interpretation will only increase proportionate to the total number of data points. The system is likely to enable the repurposing of data, sensitivity and what-if analyses, model integration and consensus building across disciplines and schools. Once fully operational, the WG12 online system will make clear where gaps exist in our knowledge and therefore where further research resources can best be applied.
Anticipated IGCP 521 project outcomes are available for review on the IGCP 521 Website.
The prototype system developed for this site demonstrates the display of combined data displayed from two different databases on a GEBCO bathymetric GIS grid:
- 5.0+ magnitude earthquakes from 2150 BC to Present, from a online database of 68,000 quakes sourced through the USGS.
- IGCP521 Work Group II Palynology core inventory.
About UNESCO
International Geoscience Programme (IGCP): Geoscience in the service of society
About the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS)
About the International Union for Quaternary Research (INQUA)
