SGER: A Search for the Oldest Metazoan Trace Fossils in the Northern Hemisphere

SGER：寻找北半球最古老的后生动物痕迹化石

• 批准号: 0731388
• 负责人: Erle Kauffman
• 金额: $ 1万
• 依托单位: Indiana University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2007-09-15 至 2008-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0731388&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SGER; Search; Oldest; Metazoan; Trace

The importance of the project lies in the search for the oldest metazoan life on Earth. The age of the rocks surrounding the units with the metazoan traces in Wyoming range from 2.0 - 2.5 Byrs., indicating that this is the oldest evidence of metazoan life in North America. If our preliminary data are correct and the organic nature of the traces proves unequivocal, then molecular data of metazoan life will be closer in age to the rock evidence. Further, this would imply that the increase of oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere at a level possibly enough to support Metazoan life must have taken place by 2.3 Byrs. Our expected results will have enormous implications to metazoan paleontology, sedimentary organic geochemistry, geochronology of fossil-bearing strata, and comparison of fossil and molecular data. It was once thought that "....the animals of the Ediacara fauna are so varied and some of them are so complex that metazoans must have existed, without leaving traces now known, for a very long earlier time." (G. G. Simpson, 1978, p. 101). We have a chance to prove that Simpson was right utilizing an integrated, full blown approach through a thorough, modern set of analyses.

该项目的重要性在于寻找地球上最古老的后生生物。怀俄明州后生动物遗迹单元周围岩石的年龄范围为2.0-2.5Byr.，表明这是北美后生动物生命的最古老证据。如果我们的初步数据是正确的，并且遗迹的有机性质被证明是明确的，那么后生动物生命的分子数据在年龄上将更接近岩石证据。此外，这将意味着地球大气中氧气的增加可能足以支持后生动物生命的水平必须发生在2.3Byr之前。我们的预期结果将对后生动物古生物学、沉积有机地球化学、含化石地层的年代学以及化石和分子数据的比较产生巨大的影响。人们曾经认为“……埃迪卡拉动物群的动物种类繁多，其中一些动物非常复杂，以至于后生动物肯定在很久以前就存在了，而没有留下现在所知的痕迹。”(G.G.辛普森，1978年，第101页)。我们有机会通过一套彻底的、现代的分析，利用一种完整、全面的方法来证明辛普森是正确的。