Late Cenozoic Vertebrate Biostratigraphy Across the TransMexican Volcanic Belt, Central Mexico

横贯墨西哥的火山带基本上是东西向的，横跨墨西哥中部，包含一系列晚新生代南北向的地堑。这些断陷盆地含有丰富的脊椎动物化石记录，直到最近才认识到其范围。基于初步研究，这一记录表面上是完整的，显示了建立一个从中新世早期到更新世的完整的脊椎动物进化系列的巨大希望。气候和环境的大范围变化，南美移民到达的时间，以及许多形式的灭绝的原因是将在本研究中讨论的主题。沉积物类型，包括丰富的火山灰和火山岩与盆地接壤和下面，使得上述事件的年代学精度很高。

Miller-EAR 9902898The Transmexican Volcanic Belt, which runs basically east-west across central Mexico, contains a series of north-south trending late Cenozoic grabens. These faulted basins contain a rich vertebrate fossil record that has only recently been recognized as to its extent. The apparent completeness of this record, based on preliminary research, shows great promise in being able to establish an unbroken evolutionary series of vertebrates from the early Miocene through the Pleistocene. Climatic and environmental changes of major scope, times of arrivals of South American immigrants, as well as reasons for extinctions of many forms are topics that will be addressed in the present research. Types of sediments, which include abundant volcanic ash and volcanic rocks bordering and underlying the basins, allow for great chronologic precision of the above events.