Geological and Paleontological Research in Pakistan

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Technical Narrative: This proposal will allow Dr. S.M. Raza, Deputy Director of the Geological Survey of Pakistan (GSP) to participate in collaborative research with Dr. John J. Kelley, Brown University. Since 1973, a geological and paleontological field project has been operative in the Siwalik region in collaboration with the Geological Survey of Pakistan (GSP). Dr. Raza has been a key participant in the project since its beginning. The primary goal of the current research is to look for Miocene hominoids in the erosional debris deposited in the Siwalik Hills of Pakistan by the uplift of the Himalaya Mountains. The excavation site is fossiliferous and highly informative about earlier states of higher primate evolution. Another research goal which has evolved into a large multidisciplinary effort is to reconstruct the physical and vegetational settings of past environments and thus come to an understanding of the evolution of South Asian mammal faunas and their habitats. The project will proceed simultaneously in fieldwork, fossil data base construction and analysis. Dr. Raza will be in the United States during the next two summers to carry out his research within the project context and to prepare a special issue on the Siwalik for the Journal of Human Evolution. The proposal requests funds for equipment and supplies necessary for the proper curation and utilization of the more than 40,000 fossil speciments collected by the Siwalik project. Finally, funds are requested for the PI to visit Pakistan to install a computerized fossil database and for the training of the GSP staff. Scope: Apart from the mutual benefits to both institutions and to scientific knowledge from this cooperative research, the project will develop human resources through training and promote institution building not only by strengthening the institutional links with the GSP but by funding the remaining equipment needed to make their magnetostratigraphy laboratory a thoroughly up-to- date facility. This is appropriate for a country that, in terms of its paleontological wealth, is one of the richest in the developing world.