Chronos: a network for Earth system history

CHRONOS (Greek: time) aims to create a dynamic, interactive and time-calibrated framework for Earth history. CHRONOS's main objective is to develop a network of databases and visualization and analytical methodologies that broadly deal with chronostratigraphy - that is, with developing a better tool (the time scale) for understanding fundamental Earth processes through time. The CHRONOS platform will provide a new investigative environment for interdisciplinary Earth history research that includes the evolution and diversity of life, climate change, geochemical cycles, rapid geologic events, magnetic field fluctuations, and other major Earth system processes. What caused the largest mass extinction of the last 600 million years? How did life evolve from the first simple bacteria that dominated for billions of years? The goal is not only to produce a system for assembling and consolidating such a wide range of Earth history data, but also to provide a platform for modern, innovative Earth science research, and to empower the general public with new knowledge of Earth science facts and issues. Educational levels: Graduate or professional, Undergraduate lower division, Undergraduate upper division