Best Practices for Mission Applications

Establishing a Paleontology GDB for Public Lands

—John Varner, USDA Forest Service

The U.S. Forest Service was in need of an application to track fossils located on lands managed by the agency, and realized there was no acceptable existing database. To obtain a broad view of the subject matter and to establish a common environment for all land management agencies, several agencies were included in the development. The process included a year-long program working closely with USFS Paleontologists considering agency, regional, and field-level requirements with additional input from paleontologists at the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), and other agencies. PaleoEx (short for Paleontology Extension for ArcGIS) includes a purpose-built geodatabase with an interface designed to ease the data entry, editing, and tracking of fossil data for current and historical activities within a paleontological area of interest. This includes key activities such as tracking individual fossil specimens; removal authorization(s) and accompanying curatorial agreements; NEPA clearance and reclamation monitoring data; and history of theft, vandalism, and impacts. As an added benefit, PaleoEx provides a seamless link to ArcGIS for detailed mapping and analysis.