RAPID: Salvage Recovery of Miocene Fossil Primates and Other Vertebrates from Localities Threatened by Hydroelectric Dam Projects along the Rio Santa Cruz, Argentina

将进行的研究是在阿根廷最南端的里奥圣克鲁斯河沿岸(圣克鲁斯省)进行的。该项目至关重要，而且时间敏感，因为两座水电站大坝的建设正在开始，这两座大坝将淹没待研究的化石地点。大坝选址和沿江基础设施的改善工作于2012年开始。因此，从该地区找回标本将挽救原本很快就会被科学丢失的信息。圣克鲁斯省以其早期中新世脊椎动物化石而闻名世界，其年龄范围约为1900万年至1500万年前，并以其独特的能力记录南美类人灵长类动物的进化和适应，这些灵长类动物也被称为鸭嘴猴或新大陆猴子，构成了热带南美洲现代生物多样性的重要组成部分(17属130种)。这些化石地点位于圣克鲁斯组，记录了一个被称为中中新世气候最佳时期(MMCO)的气候变暖时期的开始，这是它们出现在目前分布界限以南20°纬度的原因。这些遗址包含了最完整的鸭嘴兽化石，从它们在26 Ma左右首次出现在非洲大陆到全新世。这些完整的化石所揭示的信息，给了科学家们对早期鸭嘴兽生物学、生态学和系统发育的无与伦比的洞察力。要解决的科学问题具有广泛的古人类学和古生物学意义，包括：1)阐明正在进行的关于新大陆猴子现存动物家族的古老争论，了解它们生活的哺乳动物群落结构和环境；以及2)分析脊椎动物对MMCO气候变化的反应。这项研究将继续美国和阿根廷科学家之间的长期合作，这些科学家来自灵长类动物学、地层学、无脊椎动物和脊椎动物古生物学以及地球化学等不同领域。它促进了对学生和专业人员的持续培训，特别是对一名美国研究生和几名阿根廷学生进行了古水母学和脊椎动物古生物学的实地培训。

The research to be conducted is the along the Río Santa Cruz in far southern Argentina (Santa Cruz Province). The project is critical and time sensitive because construction is beginning on two hydroelectric dams that will inundate the fossil localities to be studied. Dam site preparation and infrastructure improvement were begun along the river in 2012. Recovery of specimens from this region therefore salvages information that will otherwise soon be lost to science. Santa Cruz Province is world-famous for its Early Miocene vertebrate fossils, which range in age from about 19 to 15 million years ago, and for its unique capacity to document the evolution and adaptations of South American (SA) anthropoid primates, also called platyrrhines or New World monkeys, that make up a significant fraction of the modern biodiversity of tropical South America (17 genera and 130 species). The fossil sites occur in the Santa Cruz Formation and document the onset of a period of climate warming called the mid-Miocene Climate Optimum (MMCO), which accounts for their occurrence 20° of latitude south of their current distributional limits. The sites contain the most complete fossil platyrrhines from their first known appearance on the continent at about 26 Ma until the Holocene. The information that has been revealed by such complete fossils has given scientists unparalleled insights into early platyrrhine biology, ecology, and phylogeny. The scientific questions to be addressed are of broad paleoanthropological and paleontological significance, and include the core specific aims of 1) the illumination of ongoing debates about the antiquity of the living zoological families of New World monkeys and an understanding of the mammalian community structure and environments in which they lived; and 2) the analysis of the responses of vertebrates to the climatic changes of the MMCO. The conduct of the research will continue a longstanding collaboration between US and Argentinian scientists from disparate fields of primatology, stratigraphy, invertebrate and vertebrate paleontology, and geochemistry. It fosters the continued training of students and professionals including, especially, the field training of a US graduate student and several Argentinian students in paleoprimatology and vertebrate paleontology.