Collaborative Research: Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoenvironments of the Richest, Endemic-Dominated Fossil Assemblage in Cenozoic of Tibetan Plateau (Qaidam Basin, China)

合作研究：青藏高原新生代最丰富、特有的化石组合的古脊椎动物学和古环境（中国柴达木盆地）

• 批准号: 0444073
• 负责人: Yang Wang
• 金额: $ 8.04万
• 依托单位: Florida State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2005
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2005-03-01 至 2009-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0444073&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Vertebrate; Paleontology; Paleoenvironments

ABSTRACTThis is a multi-national, multidisciplinary research project to survey Cenozoic fossils in the northern Tibetan Plateau. Due to difficulties of access and extreme environments, the vast plateau is little explored and remains the last frontier for paleontological explorations. Preliminary surveys in the Qaidam basin, the largest terrestrial basin in the Tibetan Plateau, have yielded a number of richly fossiliferous localities spanning a long sequence of strata often more than 5,000 meters thick in continuous exposures. Ranging from early Miocene (about 24 to 16 million years ago) to Pliocene (about 5 to 2 million years ago), such a remarkably complete record reveals much that was previously unknown to science. A team of paleontologists, structural and sedimentary geologists, isotope geochemists, and paleomagnetists is systematically collecting fossil mammals, fishes, and plants in the Qaidam basin and studying their paleoenvironments. Combined with paleomagnetic studies, the fossils help to establish the ages of the rocks in which they are preserved. Sedimentologic studies on the river, lake, and over-bank deposits also provide further evidence for the sources of the sediments from the surrounding mountains, the nature of the paleodrainages, and the evolution of the basin history. Analyses of carbon and oxygen isotopes preserved in fossil mammalian teeth provide valuable information about animals' diets (whether they were leave browsers or grass grazers), environment (whether they lived in a forest or on a grassland or in a wooded grassland), and regional climate. By integrating the paleontologic, magnetic, sedimentary, and geochemical data, we hope to achieve a better understanding of the links between the uplift of the Tibetan Plateau and the late Cenozoic environmental and biotic changes. Comparisons of faunas from the southern slope of Tibet in India and Pakistan with the Qaidam faunas to the north will offer clues of mammalian migrations and geographic barriers as the high Tibet continued to rise. The new data are particularly relevant in the current debate over the impact of the rising Tibetan Plateau on climate, vegetation, and mammalian evolution in the Cenozoic of Eurasia.

青藏高原北方新生代化石调查是一项多学科、跨国家的研究项目。由于难以进入和极端环境，广阔的高原很少被探索，仍然是古生物学探索的最后前沿。柴达木盆地是青藏高原最大的陆相盆地，在初步调查中，已发现了许多富含石油的地点，这些地点跨越了一个长序列的地层，其厚度往往超过5,000米，连续暴露。从中新世早期（约2400万至1600万年前）到上新世（约500万至200万年前），如此完整的记录揭示了许多以前科学未知的东西。一个由古生物学家、构造和沉积地质学家、同位素地球化学家和古地磁学家组成的团队正在柴达木盆地系统地收集哺乳动物、鱼类和植物化石，并研究它们的古环境。结合古地磁研究，这些化石有助于确定保存它们的岩石的年龄。对河流、湖泊和漫滩沉积物的沉积学研究也为周围山脉的沉积物来源、古水系的性质和盆地历史的演变提供了进一步的证据。对保存在化石哺乳动物牙齿中的碳和氧同位素的分析提供了有关动物饮食（无论它们是食叶动物还是食草动物），环境（无论它们是生活在森林中还是草原上还是在树木繁茂的草原上）和区域气候的宝贵信息。通过综合古生物、磁性、沉积和地球化学数据，我们希望更好地了解青藏高原隆升与晚新生代环境和生物变化之间的联系。将印度和巴基斯坦境内西藏南坡的动物群与北部的柴达木动物群进行比较，将为哺乳动物的迁徙和青藏高原持续上升的地理障碍提供线索。这些新数据与当前关于青藏高原上升对欧亚大陆新生代气候、植被和哺乳动物进化影响的争论特别相关。