Reconstructing Rivers: Fluvial Environments of Cretaceous Strata in Dinosaur National Monument, an REU Site

该项目将为学生提供一个难得的机会，为沉积地质学中一个及时、重要的研究问题做出贡献。八名本科生，连同两名学生助教和PI，将进行实地和实验室研究，以确定恐龙国家纪念碑，犹他州和科罗拉多州的下白垩纪地层的沉积历史。最近在恐龙国家纪念碑（DNM）内发现了一个新的骨床，这使古生物学家认识到，以前被认为局限于白垩纪中期欧亚大陆的大型蜥脚类动物在北美仍然存在。在新发现的蜥脚类骨骼的白垩纪地层中，沉积学分析，特别是表征古恐龙栖息地的相解释相对不发达。本研究项目将逐步培养学生理解和解释白垩纪雪松山地层沉积学的研究技能。该项目将河流沉积学的野外工作与河流过程的模拟模拟相结合。这个项目的结果将对北美古生物学家非常重要，因此将为学生参与者提供他们研究的相关性的直接感觉。在整个项目中，PI和访问科学家将培养学生在观察和解释的基础上进行研究的思维，以及开发实际相模型的思维。

This project will provide students with an exceptional opportunity to contribute to a timely, important research problem in sedimentary geology. Eight undergraduate students, along with two student Teaching assistants and the PI, will conduct field and laboratory research to determine the sedimentary history of fossil-bearing Lower Cretaceious strata in Dinosaur National Monument, Utah and Colorado. Recent discovery of a new bone bed within Dinosaur National Mounument (DNM) has led paleontologists to recognize that large sauropods, previously thought to be restricted to Eurasia in mid-Cretaceious time, were still extant in North America. Sedimentologic analysis, especially facies interpretation to characterize ancient dinosaur habitats, is relatively undeveloped in the Cretaceous strata that contain the newly discovered sauropod skeletons.This research project will progressively develop students' research skills toward understanding and interpreting the sedimentology of the Cretaceious Cedar Mountain formation. The project combines field work in fluvial sedimentology with analog modeling of fluvial processes. The results of this project will be highly significant to North American paleontologists, and will thus provide student participants with an immediate sense of the relevance of their research. Throughout the program, the PI and visiting scientists will develop students' thinking about conducting research based on observation and interpretation, and the development of actualistic facies models.