High Risk Exploratory Research: Biogeochronology of the European Villafranchian--reanalysis of the Seneze site, central France

维拉法尼亚人是以生活在大约350万至150万年前的哺乳动物为基础的欧洲时间间隔，这一间隔见证了人类和动物进化中的重要事件。虽然这一概念是在近150年前首次提出的，但关于单元和子单元边界的时间仍然存在不确定性。PI‘s将试图通过重新分析晚维拉法尼亚纪哺乳动物的主要地点之一--法国中部塞内泽的火山爆发火山口湖(MAAR)来澄清情况。60年来，塞内泽没有进行过重大的古生物采集，而自20世纪60年代以来的地层学和测年研究得出了相互矛盾的结果。既不知道生产性发现地点的确切位置，也不知道谁控制着进入这些地点的途径，而且可能不止一个化石产层。该小组的工作将涉及三个相辅相成的方法：1)澄清这一复杂遗址的当地地质；2)利用遗址及其动物群的测年方法相结合；3)从修订后和确定年代的地层中的已知地点收集哺乳动物化石。这项研究可能会产生重要哺乳动物的新标本，如陆生灵长类动物副多年生猩猩。这项申请要求在2000年6月进行为期一周的试探性访问。如果成功，将在2001年尝试一个地层-地质年代学季节，并计划在2002年和2003年全面收集化石。

The Villafranchian is a European time interval based on the mammalswhich lived from roughly 3.5-1.5 million years ago, an interval which sawimportant events in human and faunal evolution. Although this concept wasfirst proposed nearly 150 years ago, there is still uncertainty as to thetiming of the unit and subunit boundaries. The PI's will attempt to clarifythe situation through reanalysis of one of the major late Villafranchianmammalian localities, the volcanic explosion-crater lake (maar) of Seneze,in central France. No major paleontological collection has been undertakenat Seneze in 60 years, while stratigraphic and dating studies since 1960have yielded conflicting results. Neither the precise location ofproductive findspots nor who controls access to them is known, and theremay be more than one fossil-bearing horizon. The team effort will involve three complementary approaches: 1) toclarify the local geology of this complex site; 2) to utilize a combinationof dating methods on the site and its fauna; and 3) to collect mammalianfossils from known points within the revised and dated stratigraphy. Newspecimens of important mammals such as the terrestrial primateParadolichopithecus may result from this study. This application requestsfunds for a one-week exploratory visit in June 2000. If that is successful,a stratigraphic-geochronological season will be attempted in 2001, withfull-scale collecting of fossils planned for 2002 and 2003.