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

维拉弗兰奇期是欧洲的一个时间间隔，基于生活在大约350 - 150万年前的哺乳动物，这段时间见证了人类和动物进化中的重要事件。虽然这个概念在近150年前首次提出，但关于单位和亚单位边界的时间仍然存在不确定性。PI将试图通过对法国中部Seneze火山爆发火山口湖（maar）的重新分析来澄清这种情况。60年来，塞内兹没有发现任何重要的古生物标本，而自1960年以来的地层学和年代学研究却产生了相互矛盾的结果。生产性发现点的精确位置和谁控制着进入它们的途径都不为人知，而且可能不止一个含化石层。 该小组的工作将涉及三个互补的方法：1）澄清这个复杂遗址的当地地质; 2）利用遗址及其动物群的年代测定方法的组合; 3）从修订和年代测定的地层学中的已知点收集古生物化石。重要哺乳动物的新标本，如陆栖灵长类Paradolichopithecus可能来自这项研究。这项申请要求提供资金，以便在2000年6月进行为期一周的探索性访问。如果这是成功的，将尝试在2001年进行地层-地质年代学季节，并计划在2002年和2003年进行全面的化石收集。

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.