Collaborative Research: Late Paleozoic-Mesozoic Fauna, Environment, Climate and Basinal History: Beardmore Glacier Area, Transantarctic Mountains

该奖项由极地方案办公室南极地质和地球物理方案提供，为一项研究提供资金，以调查南极中部晚古生代和中生代的古环境条件。比尔德莫尔冰川地区被称为Beacon Supergroup的4公里厚的沉积岩序列记录了冈瓦那这一高古纬度地区二叠纪到侏罗纪的9000万年历史。它聚集在前陆盆地中，其下沉速度大致等于沉积速度。这些沉积物产生了各种各样的脊椎动物化石，原地化石森林，以及保存特别完好的植物化石。它们提供了冰川、湖泊和溪流/河流环境和生态系统的独特一瞥，并保存了该地区无与伦比的沉积、古气候和构造历史的记录。到目前为止所做的出色工作为建立对条件和过程的理解提供了坚实的信息基础。这个项目是对这一地层剖面的合作研究，它将结合沉积学、古生物学和遗迹观察来回答重点问题，包括：(1)比尔德莫尔地区上二叠统至侏罗纪岩石的地层结构和冲积相是什么？(2)这些岩石是在什么构造地层背景下沉积的？(3)脊椎动物是否生活在寒冷的、接近极地的二叠纪泛滥平原，如脊椎动物洞穴所示，这些洞穴能否首次用于识别中生代沉积物中小型早期哺乳动物的存在？以及(4)湖泊和溪流中的海底动物如何利用底物生态空间，这些高古纬度地区的生态空间使用与低古纬度同等环境中的生态空间使用有何不同，洞穴分布揭示了河流流量的季节性，从而揭示了古气候的什么？对这些问题的回答将(1)阐明冈瓦那这一部分的古气候、盆地和构造历史，(2)阐明脊椎动物对近极生态系统的殖民，(3)提供关于早期哺乳动物的环境和古纬度分布的新信息，以及(4)能够半定量地评估高、低纬度不同淡水环境中底栖动物的活动和丰度。总之，该项目将大大有助于了解地球历史上气候与今天有很大不同的高纬度泛滥平原地区的古生物学和古生态。

This award, provided by the Antarctic Geology and Geophysics Program of the Office of Polar Programs, provides funds for a study to investigate paleoenvironmental conditions during the late Paleozoic and Mesozoic in central interior Antarctica. The 4 km thick sequence of sedimentary rocks, known as the Beacon Supergroup, in the Beardmore Glacier area records 90 million years of Permian through Jurassic history of this high-paleolatitude sector of Gondwana. It accumulated in a foreland basin with a rate of subsidence approximately equal to the rate of deposition. The deposits have yielded diverse vertebrate fossils, in situ fossil forests, and exceptionally well preserved plant fossils. They give a unique glimpse of glacial, lake, and stream/river environments and ecosystems and preserve an unparalleled record of the depositional, paleoclimatic, and tectonic history of the area. The excellent work done to date provides a solid base of information on which to build understanding of conditions and processes.This project is a collaborative study of this stratigraphic section that will integrate sedimentologic, paleontologic, and ichnologic observations to answer focused questions, including: (1) What are the stratigraphic architecture and alluvial facies of Upper Permian to Jurassic rocks in the Beardmore area?; (2) In what tectonostratigraphic setting were these rocks deposited?; (3) Did vertebrates inhabit the cold, near-polar, Permian floodplains, as indicated by vertebrate burrows, and can these burrows be used to identify, for the first time, the presence of small early mammals in Mesozoic deposits?; and (4) How did bottom-dwelling animals in lakes and streams use substrate ecospace, how did ecospace use at these high paleolatitudes differ from ecospace use in equivalent environments at low paleolatitudes, and what does burrow distribution reveal about seasonality of river flow and thus about paleoclimate? Answers to these questions will (1) clarify the paleoclimatic, basinal, and tectonic history of this part of Gondwana, (2) elucidate the colonization of near-polar ecosystems by vertebrates, (3) provide new information on the environmental and paleolatitudinal distributions of early mammals, and (4) allow semi-quantitative assessment of the activity and abundance of bottom-dwelling animals in different freshwater environments at high and low latitudes. In summary, this project will contribute significantly to an understanding of paleobiology and paleoecology at a high latitude floodplain setting during a time in Earth history when the climate was much different than today.