The Use of Fossil Micro-Organisms for the Study of Ancient Climates in the McMurdo Dry Valleys

该奖项支持一项利用生物指标的研究，即Beacon砂岩中隐石器时代微生物定植的化石记录和永久冻土中的微生物，来重建麦克默多干谷晚上新世-更新世时期的古气候历史。这项工作将利用过去和现在在干谷地区气候敏感的生物和化石生物指标的分布情况，试图解决南极冰盖的稳定论和动态论观点。具体地说，将分析来自Beacon砂岩和永久冻土岩心的土壤，以确定是否存在已知的活微生物群和石化微生物群，或通过绘制现有微生物群的分布图来确定它们的生存区。这些信息将与微生物活动引起的特征剥落模式（近期和化石）的分布相结合，以重建相对年龄序列。冻土岩心的沉积学特征将与微生物学和年代地层资料相结合。将（酌情）通过碳-14、热释光定年和宇宙形成放射性核素的分析提供绝对年表。

This award supports a study to use biological indicators, namely fossil records of cryptoendolithic microbial colonization of Beacon sandstone and microorganisms in permafrost, to reconstruct paleoclimate history of the Late Plio-Pleistocene period in the McMurdo Dry Valleys. The work will attempt to address the stabilist versus the dynamicist view of the Antarctic ice sheet using past and present occurences of distributions of climatically sensitive living and fossilized biological indicators in the Dry Valleys region. Specifically, soil derived from Beacon Sandstone and permafrost cores will be analyzed for the occurence of living and fossilized microbial groups whose viability zones are already known or will be determined by mapping the distribution of present occurences. This information will be integrated with the distribution of characteristic exfoliation patterns (recent and fossil) caused by microbial activity to reconstruct relative age sequences. The sedimentology of the permafrost cores will be characterized and integrated with microbiological and chronostratigraphic data. Absolute chronologies will be provided (where appropriate) by carbon-14, thermoluminesence dating and analysis of cosmogenic radionuclides.