New “synthetic science” methods combine concepts, tools, and data from multiple disciplines to extract new meaning from old data and produce new insights and discoveries.

For example, a database of more than 37,000 entries tracking the first and last appearance of different organisms in the fossil record led to previously undetermined knowledge of five separate mass extinctions through time, understanding of how major geologic events can increase or reduce biodiversity, the realization that near-shore environments produce a disproportionately large share of evolutionary novelty, and other findings, and spawned the new field of synthetic paleobiology.