Salvage Excavation of an Extraordinary Pliocene Fossil Deposit in Florida

佛罗里达州非凡的上新世化石矿床的抢救性挖掘

• 批准号: 0639307
• 负责人: Jonathan Bloch
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Florida
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2006-09-01 至 2009-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0639307&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Salvage; Excavation; Extraordinary; Pliocene; Fossil

Salvage Excavation of an Extraordinary Pliocene Fossil Deposit in FloridaPI Jonathan Bloch, Co-PI Richard HulbertUniversity of FloridaEAR-0639307ABSTRACTA karst sinkhole deposit west of Gainesville, Florida has recently been discovered that, on the first day of exploration, produced three rare sloth skeletons and one tapir skeleton. Since then about 70 mammalian skeletons and a similar number of skeletons of lower vertebrates have been added. The site is Pliocene age and is in an active limestone quarry, which will be quarried out by the middle of 2008. The PIs have already recovered the first known skeletons of a number of late Pliocene taxa including the oldest skeletons of Castor (a beaver), Erethizon (the North American porcupine), and Holmesina (a large, armadillo-like mammal). Although Florida has many vertebrate fossil localities, none have produced close to the number of complete skeletons of individuals present at this sight. The site is also sampling a more forested habitat than normally preserved, and the potential for finding well-preserved individuals of new or poorly known species of fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals is very great. At PIs current pace, only about 15% of the total preserved fauna can be expected to be recovered. Therefore, SGER emergency funding is requested to allow them to significantly increase that percentage to 50% or more, greatly increasing both the chances of finding skeletons of rare taxa and increasing the sample sizes of the common taxa.

佛罗里达州非凡的上新世化石矿床的抢救性挖掘PI 乔纳森·布洛赫 (Jonathan Bloch)，联合研究员理查德·赫伯特 (Richard Hulbert) 佛罗里达大学EAR-0639307摘要 最近在佛罗里达州盖恩斯维尔以西的喀斯特天坑矿床中发现，在勘探的第一天，就发现了三具稀有的树懒骨骼和一具貘骨骼。 Since then about 70 mammalian skeletons and a similar number of skeletons of lower vertebrates have been added.该遗址属于上新世时代，位于一个活跃的石灰石采石场中，该采石场将于 2008 年中期开采。PI 已经发现了许多上新世晚期类群的第一批已知骨骼，其中包括最古老的 Castor（海狸）、Erethizon（北美豪猪）和 Holmesina（一种大型犰狳类哺乳动物）骨骼。 尽管佛罗里达州有许多脊椎动物化石产地，但没有一个产地的完整骨骼数量能与此次见到的个体的完整骨骼数量相媲美。 该地点还对比正常情况下保存的更多的森林栖息地进行了采样，并且寻找保存完好的新物种或鲜为人知的鱼类、两栖动物、爬行动物、鸟类和哺乳动物个体的潜力非常大。 按照 PI 目前的速度，预计只有大约 15% 的受保护动物群能够得到恢复。因此，需要 SGER 提供紧急资金，使他们能够将这一比例大幅提高到 50% 或更多，从而大大增加发现稀有类群骨架的机会，并增加常见类群的样本量。