Abstract
Multi- elemental and -dimensional data are more and more important during the development of data-driven research, as is the case in modern palaeontology, in which visual examination, by experts or someday the artificial intelligence, to every fossil specimen acts a crucial and fundamental role. We here release an integrated image dataset of 113 Ordovician to Silurian graptolite species or subspecies that are significant in global stratigraphy and shale gas exploration. The dataset contains 1550 high-resolution graptolite specimen images and scientific information related to the specimen, e.g., every specimen's taxonomic, geologic, geographic, and related references. We develop a tool, FSIDvis (Fossil Specimen Image Dataset Visualiser), to facilitate the human-interactive exploration of the rich-attribution image dataset. A nonlinear dimension reduction technique, t-SNE (t-Distributed Stochastic Neighbor Embedding), is employed to project the images into the two-dimensional space to visualise and explore the similarities. Our dataset potentially contributes to the analysis of the global biostratigraphic correlations and improves the shale gas exploration efficiency by developing an image-based automated classification model. All images are available from https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5205216 (Xu, 2021).
Highlights
Graptolite is marine colonial organic-walled hemichordate and has over genera/3,000 species worldwide fossil records, extending from the Cambrian to the Carboniferous (c. 510~320 Ma) shale sediments (Maletz, 2017)
Up to 102 Ordovician and Silurian graptolite species were selected as global bio-zones for dating rocks, biostratigraphy, regional correlation, and understanding the evolutionary patterns of ancient life; and 13 global stratotype section and point (GSSP) have been defined by the first appearance datum (FAD) of graptolite species in the Lower Paleozoic, i.e., Cambrian, Ordovician, and Silurian (Goldman et al, 2020)
Global bio-stratigraphical correlation using graptolites, especially with those bio-zone species; 3) a standard fossil specimen image dataset used in shale gas industry to improve exploration efficiency, and 4) the potential aid of developing image-based automated classification model
Summary
Graptolite is marine colonial organic-walled hemichordate and has over genera/3,000 species worldwide fossil records, extending from the Cambrian to the Carboniferous (c. 510~320 Ma) shale sediments (Maletz, 2017). Up to 102 Ordovician and Silurian graptolite species were selected as global bio-zones for dating rocks, biostratigraphy, regional correlation, and understanding the evolutionary patterns of ancient life; and 13 global stratotype section and point (GSSP) have been defined by the first appearance datum (FAD) of graptolite species in the Lower Paleozoic, i.e., Cambrian, Ordovician, and Silurian (Goldman et al, 2020). Identification of graptolite species helps to locate shale gale mining beds; especially, 16 graptolite species were chosen as “gold caliper” to locate favourable exploration beds (FEB) of shale gas in China (Zou et al, 2015). Global bio-stratigraphical correlation using graptolites, especially with those bio-zone species; 3) a standard fossil specimen image dataset used in shale gas industry to improve exploration efficiency, and 4) the potential aid of developing image-based automated classification model
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