Paleontologic/Stratigraphic/Lithologic Expert System for Cenozoic Open-Ocean Sediments

William R. Riedell, Linda E. Tway

COREXPERT is a developing system of Turbo Prolog programs to assist in the accumulation, manipulation, synthesis, and interpretation of information on Cenozoic sediments of the open oceans. The original data base is from Deep Sea Drilling Project cores. Information from individual sequences is retained intact in the data base and is also summarized in a grid of 5° squares of latitude and longitude, each with its range of values for sediment properties (carbonate content, biogenous silica content, etc). There is a grid for each subepoch of the Cenozoic (Quaternary, late Pliocene, early Pliocene, late Miocene, middle Miocene, etc). When a user enters data on a new sequence, COREXPERT points out any departures from expected lithologies, accumulation rates, fossil assemb ages, etc, for the particular locality and age being entered so that the nonconforming observation can be checked. If it is substantiated, the appropriate summary grid can be modified accordingly.

Several modules of this system are operational, in preliminary form. One assists in identifying fossils, another deduces age from fossil assemblages, a third adds new information to the growing data base, and a fourth displays sedimentary properties on a world ocean map--as minimum and maximum values for each 5° square for two subepochs simultaneously for comparison. We are developing this complex of programs so its essential elements will constitute an expert system shell that will be equally applicable to land-based stratigraphy, with higher geographic and stratigraphic resolution and different sets of sediment properties.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91022©1989 AAPG Annual Convention, April 23-26, 1989, San Antonio, Texas.