Geology, Paleontology and Paleobiology of the North African Early Miocene

北非中新世早期的地质学、古生物学和古生物学维克森林大学埃伦·米勒这个国际合作项目的目的是增进我们对北非哺乳动物和灵长类动物进化的了解。埃及卡塔拉凹陷的瓦迪莫赫拉因其独特的因素而成为古生物学研究的重要地点。这包括在莫赫拉保存的动物的种类，当地的年龄，以及遗址位于埃及的位置，远离东非大多数其他早期中新世的地方。在中新世早期之前，非洲是一个岛国大陆，有很大程度上特有的动物群。然而，在中新世早期，非洲-阿拉伯板块和土耳其板块发生碰撞，在非洲和欧亚大陆之间架起了一座大陆桥。在新生代，非洲首次出现了许多新的动物，包括新的灵长类动物、食肉动物和有蹄哺乳动物。其中许多动物，大约15科25种，作为化石保存在莫赫拉的岩石中。莫赫拉项目的具体目标是：1)完成埃及中新世早期的全面生物地层学计划，将以前在莫赫拉开展的地质和古生物学工作扩展到对新发现的位于地质序列较低的中新世底部沉积进行调查；2)通过对照生物化学分析(钙、碳和氧稳定同位素)测试根据咬合形态得出的饮食和栖息地偏好假说，加强对莫赫拉古环境的初步重建；3)将莫赫拉的信息用于更大范围的、区域和泛非洲的关于古动物群和植物群(渐新世和中新世早期)向现代动物群和植物群(中新世早期和中期)过渡的解释，例如，现代非洲哺乳动物的兴起和草原从欧亚大陆向非洲的扩展。该项目由国家科学基金会的SGP和OISE项目共同资助。

Geology, Paleontology and Paleobiology of the North African Early MioceneEllen Miller, Wake Forest University The goal of this international collaborative project is to enhance our understanding of North African mammalian and primate evolution. Wadi Moghra, Qattara Depression, Egypt, is an important site for paleontology because of a unique constellation of factors. These include the kinds of animals preserved at Moghra, the age of the locality, and the location of the site in Egypt far from most other early Miocene localities in East Africa. Before the early Miocene, Africa was an island continent with a largely endemic fauna. However, during the early Miocene, Afro-Arabian and Turkish tectonic plates collided resulting in a land bridge between Africa and Eurasia. For the first time in the Cenozoic, a host of new animals, including new primates, carnivores, and hoofed mammals appeared in Africa. Many of these animals, ca. 25 species in 15 families, are preserved as fossils in the rocks at Moghra. The specific goals of the Moghra project are: 1) to complete a comprehensive biostratigraphic plan of the early Miocene of Egypt, by extending previous geological and paleontological work at Moghra to include investigations of newly identified basal Miocene deposits lower in the geological sequence; 2) to strengthen preliminary reconstructions of the paleoenvironment at Moghra, by testing dietary and habitat preference hypotheses derived from occlusal morphology against biochemical analyses (calcium, carbon and oxygen stable isotopes); and 3) to contribute information from Moghra to larger, regional and pan-African interpretations of the transition from archaic faunas and floras (Oligocene and early Miocene) to more modern ones (early and middle Miocene), e.g., the rise of modern African mammals and the spread of grasslands from Eurasia into Africa. This project is co-funded by the SGP and OISE Programs at NSF.