The Oracle as Research Assistant
This just saved me a few days or weeks worth of work! Or gave me more...
(For Rich) I have found ChatGPT useful for finding reference data on two unrelated topics: wind instrument making and the Calabrian Pimentos that are related to our Svoboda peppers. The results were impressive. Tonight I asked it to locate the 30 most important references on the origin of the Siletzia Terrane and the Crescent Formation of the Pacific Northwest. This is for our research on some early echinoderms. Here was the first run in raw form (prompts are in bold, response in italics). Note that some of these references simply do not exist probably:
Please list for me 30 important papers on the origins of Siletzia and the Crescent Formation of the Pacific Northwest? Please list authors, publication and date, title, and page numbers if needed in this format: Author(s), Title. Publication, Date, Page number range if in a journal.
Certainly! Here are 30 important papers on the origins of Siletzia and the Crescent Formation of the Pacific Northwest, published since 2010:
Wells, R.E., and Engebretson, D.C. "Cenozoic tectonics of western North America controlled by evolving width of the Farallon slab." Nature, 2010, 463(7282), pp. 1144-1148.
Streck, M.J., Duncan, R.A., and Buchwaldt, R. "Cenozoic magmatism and tectonics in the Pacific Northwest: a volcanic record of the northward migration of the Cascadia subduction system." GSA Today, 2011, 21(10), pp. 4-10.
Wells, R.E., and Hooper, P.R. "The Columbia River Basalt Group: from the gorge to the sea." GSA Today, 2012, 22(3), pp. 4-9.
Farmer, G.L., and Trehu, A.M. "Upper plate deformation associated with seamount subduction at the Cascadia forearc margin." Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, 2012, 13(6).
Duncan, R.A., and Richards, M.A. "Hotspots, mantle plumes, flood basalts, and true polar wander." Reviews of Geophysics, 2012, 50(1).
Liu, L., Gurnis, M., Seton, M., and Saleeby, J. "Cenozoic tectonic evolution of western North America controlled by evolving width of Farallon slab." Nature, 2013, 496(7444), pp. 81-84.
Streck, M.J., Trehu, A.M., and Bukry, D. "Cretaceous Pacific Plate stratigraphy in the Cascadia forearc basin and its deformation during the Paleogene Siletzia accretionary episode." GSA Bulletin, 2014, 126(9-10), pp. 1173-1193.
Snavely, P.D., Jr., and MacLeod, N.S. "Geologic history of the Columbia River Gorge, as interpreted from its rock sequences." Geosphere, 2014, 10(5), pp. 839-872.
Duncan, R.A., and Keller, R.A. "Radiometric ages for Siletzia, the accreted terrane in the Cascadia subduction margin." Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 2015, 419, pp. 55-66.
Wells, R.E. "Tectonic development of the Cascadia subduction margin: a review." Tectonophysics, 2016, 666, pp. 221-239.
Trehu, A.M., and Fisher, M.A. "The structure and evolution of the Cascadia subduction zone: insights from the northern Eel River margin, offshore California." Tectonophysics, 2016, 668, pp. 1-16.
Farmer, G.L., Goldfinger, C., and Dziak, R.P. "Earthquake and tsunami history of the Cascadia subduction zone: a synthesis of geological and geophysical evidence." Oregon State University Press, 2017.
Pyle, M.L., Gutiérrez, J.T., and Wells, R.E. "Geologic history of the Columbia River Gorge, as interpreted from its rock sequences." GSA Bulletin, 2017,
Lescinsky, D.T., and Hallett, J.D. "Structural and tectonic development of the Crescent Formation, Washington." Geological Society of America Special Papers, 2018, 539, pp. 81-106.
Bartlow, N.M., and Gutiérrez, J.T. "Submerged evidence of the Olympic-Wallowa Lineament: a major Pacific Northwest tectonic boundary." Marine Geology, 2018, 398, pp. 1-15.
Wells, R.E., Blakely, R.J., and Weaver, C.S. "Cascadia subduction zone earthquakes recorded by onshore paleoseismic trenches in the Puget Lowland, Washington." Seismological Research Letters, 2018, 89(6), pp. 2179-2191.
Schoonmaker, J.E., and Baldwin, J.A. "The Siletzia terrane in southwest Oregon: stratigraphy, structure, and incremental assembly of ancient basement." Geosphere, 2019, 15(2), pp. 340-366.
Chapman, R.H., and Dragovich, J.D. "Geology of the upper Columbia River basin: a regional overview." Geological Society of America Special Papers, 2019, 548, pp. 1-23.
Kelley, K.A., Gutiérrez, J.T., and Plank, T. "Rethinking Siletzia: the accretion of large oceanic plateaus to western North America." Nature Reviews Earth and Environment, 2020, 1, pp. 344-354.
Lescinsky, D.T., and Dragovich, J.D. "Structure, stratigraphy, and tectonic evolution of the Eocene Crescent Formation, northern Coast Range, Washington." Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, 2020, 57(5), pp. 573-588.
Mendoza, J.L., Wells, R.E., and Dragert, H. "The spatial and temporal variability of Pacific Northwest slow slip events from 2003 to 2018." Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 2020, 125(7).
Kelley, K.A., Plank, T., and Gutiérrez, J.T. "Siletzia, Wallowa terrane, and the accretionary growth of western North America." GSA Bulletin, 2021, 133(7-8).
Bostock, M.G., Rondenay, S., and McClay, K.R. "The seismogenic zone beneath the Pacific Northwest." Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 2021, 561.
Fattaruso, L., and Wells, R.E. "Seismic imaging reveals tectonic boundary within the Olympic-Wallowa Lineament, Pacific Northwest." Geology, 2021, 49(5), pp. 465-468.
Gillis, R.J., Butterfield, D.A., and Barling, J. "Seafloor spreading and the formation of the Ontong Java Plateau." Nature Communications, 2021, 12(1), pp. 1-9.
Irvine, T., Pearce, J.A., and Peate, D.W. "Paleogene large igneous provinces and their climatic and environmental effects." Earth-Science Reviews, 2021, 215.
Paterson, S.R., and Smith, E.I. "Siletzia, the accreted oceanic plateau of western North America." Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 2021, 49, pp. 155-186.
Schmandt, B., Weldon, R.J., and Creager, K.C. "Flat slab subduction and the Pacific Northwest: seismic evidence for strain partitioning and contrasting lithospheric structure." Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 2021, 576.
Wells, R.E., Blakely, R.J., and Weaver, C.S. "Paleoseismology of the Cascadia subduction zone in the northern Puget Lowland, Washington." Geological Society of America Special Papers, 2021, 558.
Zarifi, Z., and Govers, R. "The effect of the Siletzia volcanic plateau on the North American plate: A review." Earth-Science Reviews, 2021, 223.
That was fantastic!!!
Thank you! I'm glad I could be of help. If you have any more questions or if there's anything else I can do to assist you, please don't hesitate to ask.
My next attempt was to see what was written since 1990 on the paleontology of these terranes. It didn’t go so well. At the end I had it look for what I had written as well as friends. Then what I may have written with my friend Rich and sometimes others. It took some prompting before it found Exceptional Crinoids by B.C.M.. It returned 82 as the magic number of articles written by my friend Jim Goedert as well as Rich. And for everyone else, except for me as it didn’t find any. 2 actually exist.
It also listed this important paper:
Kelly, C., and Bovini, R. (2017). First report of a Late Cretaceous (Campanian) echinoid (Echinodermata) from the Pacific Northwest. Journal of Paleontology 91 (5), 1023-1029.
This one is important as it is proof that another simultaneous universe exists, and that ChatGPT has figured out how to synergize with its adjacent universe counterpart. Rich and I never wrote that article in this universe and it simply doesn’t exist. I looked that up on the Paleontological Society’s website and saw something else in the page range. Now I am wondering about all of the numerical data in the above bibliography. Also note that this bibliography isn’t alphabetized.
I’ve disguised these names so that some webcrawler doesn’t find them and cause trouble.