PCI Paleontology

Title

The Morrison Formation Sauropod Consensus: A freely accessible online spreadsheet of collected sauropod specimens, their housing institutions, contents, references, localities, and other potentially useful informationuse asterix (*) to get italics

Authors

Emanuel Tschopp, John A. Whitlock, D. Cary Woodruff, John R. Foster, Roberto Lei, Simone GiovanardiPlease use the format "First name initials family name" as in "Marie S. Curie, Niels H. D. Bohr, Albert Einstein, John R. R. Tolkien, Donna T. Strickland"

Year

2019

Picture

Abstract

<p>The Morrison Formation has been explored for dinosaurs for more than 150 years, in particular for large sauropod skeletons to be mounted in museum exhibits around the world. Several long-term campaigns to the Jurassic West of the United States produced hundreds of specimens, ranging from isolated, fragmentary bones to nearly complete skeletons of these enormous herbivorous animals. Given the sheer number of specimens, keeping track of what is housed in which institution is paramount to study variability, taxonomy, and consequently geographic and temporal distribution of the various species and genera recognized from the Morrison Formation. In an attempt to facilitate these studies, we have compiled an online spreadsheet intended to combine all the available information on sauropod specimens from collection databases, published literature, and personal observations. These include lists of contents of the specimens, in what institution the material is housed, references mentioning, describing, figuring, providing measurements and/or 3D scans, locality data and stratigraphy, as well as other potentially useful data for research purposes. The spreadsheet is openly accessible, but editing is currently restricted to the authors of this study, in order to ensure high-quality data curation to keep the file as useful as possible.</p>

Indicate the full web address (DOI or URL) giving public access to these data (if you have any problems with the deposit of your data, please contact contact@paleo.peercommunityin.org). In case all raw data are included in the preprint, indicate the DOI or URL of the preprint.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OazMLgm6rZe7SaNP3YexbqS9Vo-FsqFyFoJktcr2H8Q/edit?usp=sharingYou should fill this box only if you chose 'All or part of the results presented in this preprint are based on data'. URL must start with http:// or https://

Indicate the full web address (DOI or URL) giving public access to these scripts (if you have any problems with the deposit of your scripts, please contact contact@paleo.peercommunityin.org). In case all raw scripts are included in the preprint, indicate the DOI or URL of the preprint.

You should fill this box only if you chose 'Scripts were used to obtain or analyze the results'. URL must start with http:// or https://

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Keywords

collaborative project, Morrison Formation, open science, sauropod dinosaurs

Methods that require specific expertise (optional)

NonePlease indicate the methods that may require specialised expertise during the peer review process (use a comma to separate various required expertises).

Thematic fields

Fossil record, Methods, Paleobiodiversity, Taxonomy, Vertebrate paleontology

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Submission date

2019-07-19 16:13:45

Recommender

Jordan Mallon

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