The Circum-Pacific Geospatial Data Project (CPGDP) in Year 2000

M.J. Terman, Project Director

During year 2000, the fifth year of the Project, donor support was not provided and consequently no Annual Industrial Associates Meeting was scheduled in Houston, no Technical Adviser visits were made to National Coordinators in Asia, and no Working Group Meeting was possible.

However, using personal funds, CPGDP staff (Abston, Dutro and Terman) presented three coordinated posters at the AAPG International Conference, Bali 2000 (October 15-18) that summarized a Historical Review, three digital databases (Lexicon, Biostratigraphy and Geochronology), and the brand-new draft version of the Phanerozoic Timescale and Biozonation Chart for East and Southeast Asia which detailed some 760 biozones.  The staff also held useful discussions with Lemigas in Jakarta (October 20) identifying biozonation of Indonesian basins.

In Bangkok (October 28), staff took part in a meeting of newly constituted Circum-Pacific Council Northwest Quadrant Panel.  During discussions on the Circum-Pacific Map Project, a CD-ROM was distributed to each country that included raster scanned and compressed images of 6 thematic sheets of the Northwest Quadrant, 7 from the Southwest Quadrant, and the relevant 9 explanatory notes.  It is anticipated that all 54 sheets and 26 explanatory notes will be scanned, archived for printing on demand, and available on 4 regional CDs, 4 thematic CDs or 1DVD.

The CPC Northwest Quadrant Panel also received the latest CPGDP CD-ROM (ver 5.4, 2000) containing15,986 records, most of which are unfortunately not complete.  Of the 1,554 Lexicon records, 1,234 are missing lat/lon and 1,072 are missing original references; only Thailand is complete.  Of the 6,605 Geochronologic records, 2,065 are missing lat/lon and many are missing original references; Japan, Korea, Malaysia and Thailand are essentially complete.  Of the 7,827 Biostratigraphic records, 7,534 seem to be only fossil listings but 293 can be interpreted as biozones; Chief Scientist Dutro working with USGS colleagues has now identified some 760 Asian biozones since the Precambrian.  Each country must provide the missing lat/lon and reference data for the Project to be successfully completed.

CPGDP will continue to solicit donor funds such that National Coordinators that have completed all their databases by September 1, 2001, will be invited to the 5th meeting of the CPGDP/CCOP Working Group on Geological Correlation that is anticipated to be held in conjunction with the CCOP Annual Session at Phnom Penh, Cambodia, during October 2001.