RUI: Planning Visit to Initiate Interdisciplinary Paleoclimatic Investigations in the Peninsula de Mejillones Region, Northern Chile

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9604813 Emslie This Americas Program award will support travel and related expenses for five senior researchers and two graduate and one undergraduate students from Western State College, Colorado, the Paleontological Research Institute, New York, and the Florida and New Mexico Museums of Natural History to travel to Antofagasta, Chile, to plan a collaborative interdisciplinary research project with the Universidad de Antofagasta on the paleontology of marine shell beds in northern Chile. The major objectives of this planning visit will be to gain insight on the stratigraphic sequence of marine shell beds and seabird guano deposits exposed on the coast and in the Atacama Desert. Small samples of marine vertebrates and invertebrates from selected stratigraphic units within these deposits will be collected to determine their significance for future investigation. The visit will allow the establishment of professional relationships between U.S. and Chilean scientists and initiation of a long- term research program that will benefit researchers and their students in both countries. Climate on the west coast of South America fluctuates considerably today under the influence of shifting ocean currents and temperatures from the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events. The impact of these events not only affects human responses to the environment, but also the entire marine ecosystem. The planned project will be to document the long-term climatic record in this dynamic region in an effort to determine how climate change has influenced marine communities and faunal turnover. ***