The Late Triassic Tetrapod Fauna of the Fleming Fjord Formation, East Greenland

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The morphological transitions involved in the origin of mammals, and the composition changes in tetrapod faunas during the Late Triassic, are the foci of this research. This award supports the retrieval of material critical to addressing the problem of mammalian origins in association with fossiliferous, continental sediments; such an association has been discovered in the Late Triassic Fleming Fjord Formation of Jameson Land in East Greenland, an area that offers a greater range of stratigraphic and lithologic exposures than those in which Late Triassic mammals have previously been found. Several localities with dense concentrations of well preserved bones of smaller vertebrates have been identified. This award will support field investigations of microfaunal localities which may provide evidence critical to understanding mammalian origins as well as evaluating current hypotheses of vertebrate faunal evolution during the Late Triassic.