U.S.-Australia Cooperative Research: Permian Paleoclimate, Glacial Regime and Sea Level Fluctuations on the Ice-Dominated, Australian-Gondwana Shelf

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This award will enable Dr. Ross D. Powell and an assistant from Northern Illinois University to collaborate with Dr. Maxwell R. Banks of the University of Tasmania, Australia and Dr. Victor A. Gostin of the University of Adelaide, Australia during four months of field work in Australia. The project will focus on describing the glacial marine sedimentary deposits of Tasmania and the Sydney Basin in the Tasman Fold Belt of eastern Australia and on interpreting these sediments in terms of their different depositional environments. Standard sedimentological and glacial` geological techniques will be used for collecting data at outcrops during field research and for subsequent laboratory analysis. Results of this research will further our understanding of the glacial conditions and fluctuations, climatic regimes, and major sea level fluctuations during the Carboniferous-Permian glaciation of Gondwana. This will allow reevaluation of a classic model of ice shelf sedimentation. The work will benefit from the complementary skills of the U.S. and Australian researchers. Dr. Powell's background in modern glacial marine settings, when coupled with the geological field experience of Drs. Banks and Gostin, provides the kind of expertise needed to properly interpret the complex glacimarine sedimentary record of the region.