US-Australia Cooperative Research: Antarctic Paleobiology and Paleoenvironments during Pliocene Deglacial Warmth

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This award provides travel support to allow Dr. David Harwood, University of Nebraska- Lincoln, to visit the Australian Antarctic Division and the Universities of Tasmania and New England in Australia during July 1993 and 1994. The research activity is focused on Antarctic climatic history and will involve close interaction with a team of Australian investigators under the direction of Dr. Patrick Quilty, the Assistant Director of Science of the Australian Antarctic Division. The Australian team includes Dr. Robert Hill and Dr. Andrew McMinn from the University of Tasmania and Dr. Barrie McKelvey from the University of New England located in Armidale, New South Wales. New evidence from studies of geological deposits on the Antarctic continent points to a major collapse of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet during the middle Miocene and significantly warmer marine and terrestrial temperatures during the early to mid-Pliocene (~4.5 to 2.5 million years ago). The survival of terrestrial vegetation in Antarctica during this period suggests that earlier glaciations were not as cold as today. The research will continue the U.S.-Australia cooperative study of these significant terrestrial and marine deposits and will address various features of the environment and life in Antarctica during this period of deglacial warmth. The research will contribute critical southern high-latitude data to an international research effort toward a better understanding and modeling of Earth under a warmer climate regime. Specifically the proposed research will produce and apply paleobiological information to paleoclimatic interpretations, will document the last survivors of Antarctic marine and terrestrial biotas, and will continue to develop microfossils, particularly marine diatoms, as tools for geologic age dating and paleoenvironmental reconstructions in the Antarctic.