[SAC-FAST] Fwd: Date ranges in FAST for geological periods?

[qiangjin at uiuc.edu]

---- Original message ----
>Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 08:03:13 -0400
>From: "Lynn M El Hoshy" <lelh at loc.gov>  
>Subject: Fwd: Date ranges in FAST for geological periods?  
>To: <qiangjin at uiuc.edu>
>
>Qiang,
>     Members of the FAST Subcommittee might be interested in 
seeing this Autocat posting if they haven't already.  Lynn
>________________
>Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2006 15:50:26 -0500
>From: Daniel Belich <dbelich at oeb.harvard.edu>  
>Subject: Date ranges in FAST for geological periods?  
>To: AUTOCAT at LISTSERV.BUFFALO.EDU
>
>Is there anyone else out there who's troubled by the proposed
>chronological headings in FAST regarding pre-historical 
time? I quote this
>from the latest issue of TechKNOW:
>
>Period
>Following the recommendations of the ALCTS/ SAC 
Subcommittee, and those
>recommendations made at the Airlie Conference, period 
headings in FAST
>reflect the actual time period of coverage for a specific 
resource.
>Therefore, FAST chronological headings are expressed as 
either a single
>numerical date or a numerical date range. For example, the 
LCSH heading
>"20th century" is expressed in FAST as "1900-1999." A 
prehistory period
>such as the Jurassic period is expressed as "190000000-
140000000 B.C."
>
>I don't see how expressing the Jurassic period that way 
simplifies it.
>Someone dropped the ball on this because unlike the Western,
>biblically-based way of maintaining chronology (BC-AD), 
geological time
>scale terms are internationally accepted and not culturally- 
biased (so
>long as one accepts the scientific view of the Earths 
development). In
>fact, the date range in FAST is inaccurate and arbitrary. I 
have a chart
>on my desk published by the International Commission on 
Stratigraphy
>giving the Jurassic era as between 199.6 millions of years 
ago (ma) and
>145.5 ma. Will the internationally- accepted terminology of 
geological and
>paleontological time periods (era-period-epoch-stage) have 
to be used as
>topical terms in FAST instead?
>
>dbelich at oeb.harvard.edu
>Dan Belich
>Ernst Mayr Library, MCZ
>Harvard University
>26 Oxford St.
>Cambridge, MA. 02138
>(617)495-3946