Japan Long-Term Research Visit: A Comparative Study of Triassic Reefs and Reef Organisms Between North America and Japan

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This award will support a twelve month long-term visit by Professor George D. Stanley, Department of Geology, University of Montana to Japan for a cooperative research project with Professor Minoru Tamura, Faculty of Education, Kumamoto University. The research will include a comparative study of triassic reefs and reef organisms between North America and Japan. The project will investigate fossiliferous outcrops of reeflike Triassic limestone on the Japanese islands of Kyushu and Honshu. It will also involve a detailed taxonomic and paleoecologic study of corals, sponges and other reef-building biotas as well as a microfacies analysis of the enclosing carbonate rocks. Study of the Japanese fossils and rock types will form the basis for a comparison with similar-age deposits and fossils in the European Alps and in western North America. Results of the research will be integrated with previous research to produce a synthesis of reef-building and the distribution of the reef organisms during the early Mesozoic. This project will constitute an important step in an ongoing attempt toward a global synthesis of early Mesozoic reef biotas in the Tethyan and circum-Pacific regions. Professor Tamura is an established researcher with long-time interests and publications on Triassic fossils from southern Japan. Kumamoto University contains many fossils of interest. In addition, the best curated collections of Triassic corals reside in Kyushu University at nearby Fukuoka. Professor Stanley is one of the leading world authorities on Triassic reefs and their constituent faunas. It is believed that this will be a very productive collaboration and that their research efforts will continue after the formal agreement has terminated.