High-Latitude Southern Ocean Paleontology Workshop

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Harwood 9634616 Abstract Information derived from the study of fossil plants, animals, and protists provides valuable data on age and paleoenvironment in geological studies. Paleontologists are actively studying the stratigraphic record of evolution and environmental change in the Southern Ocean and Antarctic area, in order to address questions regarding climate change associated with the development of the Antarctic Ice Sheet more than 40 million years ago and the response of life to progressive cooling and ice sheet advance and retreat. Many gaps exist within the geologic record. Recent and future efforts are targeted at filling some of the major gaps through stratigraphic drilling. The Cape Roberts Project (CRP) is the most recent drilling effort, with a target to recover a record from 100 to 30 million years ago. This will build on recent drilling efforts on the margin of the Victoria Land Basin (CIROS & MSSTS) and in the Southern Ocean by the Ocean Drilling Program (ODP). The new CRP initiative will focus on the early history of ice sheets in East Antarctica and the conditions there prior to the development of the ice sheet, when this region was much warmer. A workshop to address broad issues related to AntarcticaOs biota and past environmental change in the southern high-latitudes will be held on 21 to 23 May, 1996 in Wellington, New Zealand. The workshop will review the current state of knowledge and provide a forum for scientists to develop strategies and approaches for future research. Of critical importance to this workshop will be the development and integration of biostratigraphic zonal schemes. Reference sections from the Southern Ocean and surrounding continental margins of Australia, New Zealand and South America will be compared in preparation for the 1996 and 1997 drilling at Cape Roberts. This award provide travel support U.S. paleontologists, covering a range of fossil groups and considerable DSDP and ODP experience, to particip ate in the workshop and communicate directly with paleontologists and stratigraphers from other countries involved with the Cape Roberts Project. This effort will enable a more coherent approach to the biostratigraphy and paleontological analysis of Cape Roberts Project cores and provide a forum to address larger issues related to the record of life and environmental change in the southern high-latitudes.