Climate-vegetation interactions in a warming world: establishing a long-term collaboration on the Early Permian floras of Patagonia (Argentina)

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This project aims to lay the foundation for a long-term collaboration that will involve scientists and students from the U.S. and Argentina in research and education activities associated with investigations of fossil floras. The principal investigator (PI) and two U.S. students will collaborate with scientists at the Museo Paleontologico Egidio Feruglio (Trelew, Argentina), Drs. Ruben Cuneo and Ignacio Escapa. These scientists will provide logistic support and contribute their rich expertise on local geology and fossil floras. The PI and U.S. students will spend several months in Argentina, working in the lab, field, and museum collections on Early Permian fossil floras. Activities will include surveys of plant fossil collections in natural history museums, field work to collect fossils and paleoecological data (patterns of association and geographic distribution of taxa), and lab work to describe new taxa. The PI will also teach a pilot course in Argentina.The geologic unit studied, the Rio Genoa Formation, is important for the diversity, richness, and quality of plant fossil preservation, as well as for its Early Permian age. This project will seek to discover and characterize new taxa, and will lead to enhanced understanding of plant fossil diversity. The Early Permian marks the beginning of the transition from typical Paleozoic floras to modern floras, and witnessed the transition from a major glaciation to a warmer interval.This project will start an international partnership in research and education between a non-PhD-granting U.S. university and a natural history museum in Argentina. The project integrates research with education activities; it will also produce educational materials in the form of samples and information to be included in museum exhibits.