Collaborative Research: Life in a Volcanic Landscape: Early Jurassic Paleoenvironments and Paleobotany

知识价值：虽然已知南极半岛地区的植物化石，但南极洲大陆侏罗纪植物的记录很少，可能是由于与冈瓦纳大陆分裂和费拉大火成岩省的就位相关的构造和岩浆活动。PIs计划在维多利亚地南部考察早侏罗世植物群和古环境，在那里莫森组的火山碎屑岩中含有沉积在淡水湖环境中的化石泥岩和燧石的沉积互层。他们将收集植物巨化石、地貌、炭化和石化木材，以及受详细地层学和沉积学限制的地球化学数据，以提供当时植物区系组成、沉积环境和生长环境的基线数据。这些数据将有助于了解火山活动增加时期南极洲的植物生活和古环境，并将提供植物信息，可以与冈瓦纳其他地方更知名的植物区系进行比较。费拉群中这种高纬度陆地植被的存在将使pi能够检验侏罗纪快速温室变暖的理论，这种情况类似于下个世纪现代世界的预测。更广泛的影响：该提案将扩展成功的教育和人类发展活动，包括：拓展、教学和指导女性和古生物学中代表性不足的学生；指导研究生和博士后；继续通过拓展你的视野计划和Si！恩波里亚州立大学的科学与数学，堪萨斯大学发现技术三人计划，以及堪萨斯大学自然历史博物馆。通过在多种媒体广泛传播出版物和演讲，以及通过提供存档的数字和样本数据，加强与公众的沟通。

Intellectual Merit: Although fossil floras are known from the Antarctic Peninsula region, the record of Jurassic plant life in continental Antarctica is sparse, possibly due to tectonic and magmatic activity associated with the breakup of Gondwana and the emplacement of the Ferrar Large Igneous Province. The PIs propose to examine Early Jurassic floras and paleoenvironments in southern Victoria Land, where pyroclastic rocks of the Mawson Formation contain sedimentary interbeds of fossiliferous mudstones and cherts deposited in a freshwater lake environment. They will collect plant megafossils, palynomorphs, charcoalified and petrified wood, and geochemical data constrained by detailed stratigraphy and sedimentology to provide baseline data on the composition of the floras at this time, their depositional environments, and the environment of growth. These data will contribute to understanding plant life and paleoenvironments in Antarctica during a time of increasing volcanism and will provide floral information that can be compared to other, better-known floras elsewhere in Gondwana. The presence of this high-latitude terrestrial vegetation in the Ferrar Group will allow the PIs to test the theory of rapid greenhouse warming in the Jurassic, a situation similar to that predicted for the next century in the modern world. Broader impacts: This proposal will expand on successful education and human development activities including: outreach, teaching, and mentoring of women and under-represented students in paleobiology; mentoring graduate students and postdoctoral scholars; continuing support for workshops for middle school girls in science via the Expanding Your Horizons Program and Si! Se Puede Hacer Ciencias y Matematicas at Emporia State University, the KU Discover Technology TRIO Program, and the KU Natural History Museum. Communication to the public will be enhanced through widely disseminated publications and presentations in multiple media venues, as well as through the availability of archived digital and specimen data.