CHRONOS Admin Blog News and Reviews from CHRONOS

Josh Reed and PSICAT, the core-logging software that he developed for his graduate thesis at Iowa State University, are featured together with ANDRILL on the Apple Science web site.

The timescale converter web application accessible through the CHRONOS portal (Ref: http://portal.chronos.org/gridsphere/gridsphere?cid=tools_tsconvert) uses publicly available web service calls to the timescale service described by the WSDL document located at http://services.chronos.org:9090/axis/timescales.jws?wsdl. These services are available for use on any platform.

For details on using these services in your application see: http://douglasfils.blogspot.com/2007/09/using-chronos-timescale-converter.html

CHRONOS has been funded by the National Science Foundation - Division of Ocean Sciences for the collaborative proposal 'Ocean Drilling Data, Discovery, Global Visualization and Synthesis'. This research is a collaboration between Dr. W.B.F. Ryan of Columbia University and CHRONOS. The goal of this collaborative project is to make all “legacy” sediment and biostratigraphic data from the cores and downhole measurements of the Deep Sea Drilling Project and the Ocean Drilling Program available via Web Services for visualization by the public using our own applications as well as other 3-D virtual globes in order to significantly enhance the use of these data for learning and scientific discovery.

Read the new Dr Dobbs article by Josh Reed on PSICAT: Software and the Core Description Process Eclipse and Java come in from the cold (Sep 5, 2007)

Timescale Converter is a web application that allows for the conversion between Berggren 95 and GTS 2004. This is done through the use of the paleomagnetic chrons. The relative location of a time in one scale is established against a chron. This relative location is then taken to the other timescale and resolved to a corresponding time value. More information is available in this handout

CHRONOS's partnership application was accepted by the Foundation for Earth Science. The Foundation is a non-profit corporation established in 2001 to support scientific programs and organizations that collect, process and analyze science-based Earth science information for a broad range of users. As a voting member in the Federation, CHRONOS plans to be actively involved in the development of standards for Earth science data with the goal to expand its interoperability.

Josh Reed (ISU, MS 2007) received the 2007 Eclipse Community Award for Best Open Source RCP Application for his software PSICAT (Paleontological Stratigraphic Interval Construction and Analysis Tool) at the 2007 International EclipseCon in Santa Clara, CA on March 5, 2007.

Listen to MS graduate Josh Reed's interview with the Java Posse Guys. In the interview, Josh talks about his experience with Java programming, CHRONOS, Andrill, PSICAT, and his work in Antarctica.

Because of two scheduled power outages to install a new electrical switchboard in the building that houses CHRONOS's servers, the web site and portal will be unavailable on Wed 18 July between 5 AM and 8 AM (Central US Time), and between 6 AM on Sat 28 July and 6 PM of Sun 29 July. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience that this may cause.

John Waters wrote an article about Josh's work with PSICAT and ANDRILL in Application Development Trends. "Josh Reed recently spent three months in Antarctica implementing one of the worst-named, but coolest applications to come across my desk in a month of Sundays—literally." Read the article to find out more about Josh's experience in Antarctica and about PSICAT (pron: 'sigh-cat', not 'pussycat')

Josh Reed was interviewed by the Des Moines Register while in Antarctica with ANDRILL. You can access the article here Note that in spite of what the article says, Josh's work with PSICAT did not require him to sleep outside for two months!