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

该奖项由极地项目办公室的南极地质和地球物理项目提供，为研究南极洲中部内陆晚古生代和中生代的古环境条件提供资金。4公里厚的沉积岩序列，被称为灯塔超群，位于比尔德莫尔冰川地区，记录了冈瓦纳高古纬度地区9000万年的二叠纪到侏罗纪历史。它以沉降速率与沉积速率近似相等的速率聚集在前陆盆地中。这些沉积物产生了多种脊椎动物化石、原位化石林和保存异常完好的植物化石。它们提供了对冰川、湖泊、溪流/河流环境和生态系统的独特一瞥，并保存了该地区沉积、古气候和构造历史的无与伦比的记录。迄今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。本项目是对该地层剖面的合作研究，将整合沉积学、古生物学和技术观察来回答重点问题，包括：(1)Beardmore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)这些岩石形成于什么样的构造地层环境？(3)脊椎动物是否栖息在寒冷、近极地的二叠纪洪泛平原（如脊椎动物洞穴所示），这些洞穴是否可以首次用于识别中生代沉积物中早期小型哺乳动物的存在？(4)湖泊和溪流中的底栖动物如何利用底栖生态空间，这些高古纬度地区的生态空间利用与低古纬度同等环境下的生态空间利用有何不同，以及洞穴分布如何揭示河流流量的季节性，从而揭示古气候？这些问题的答案将(1)澄清冈瓦纳古气候、盆地和构造历史，(2)阐明脊椎动物在近极生态系统的定居，(3)提供早期哺乳动物的环境和古纬度分布的新信息，(4)允许半定量评估在高纬度和低纬度不同淡水环境中的底栖动物的活动和丰度。总而言之，该项目将对了解地球历史上一个气候与今天大不相同的高纬度洪泛平原时期的古生物学和古生态学做出重大贡献。

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.