NMITA will provide 3 basic types of occurrence data for each taxon: (a) geologic age, (b) stratigraphic units, and (c) spatial location. Paleoenvironmental data will be available for selected taxa that are useful as environmental indicators. Chronostratigraphic terms will follow the time scale of Berggren et al. (1995), and stratigraphic terms will adhere to the International Stratigraphic Guide (Hedberg 1976). Most data on geologic ages and stratigraphic units will be interpretative; the raw data for these interpretations will be available by links to the Panama Paleontology Project (PPP) database and to bibliographic information. Although not indicated in our model, we will normalize our entity for Locality using a set of standard geographic names based on GIS. Maps showing the localities will be prepared using the ARC/INFO GIS, and range charts will be prepared using STATPOD.