Collaborative Research: Testing Models for Early Paleozoic Deposition, Volcanism, and Biotas of Sibumasu: Implications for Tectonics and Paleogeography

5.05亿至4.85亿年前是地球历史上一个充满活力的时期，其中包括广泛的火山活动和当时占据世界浅海的古代生物的进化。不幸的是，世界上很少有地方拥有真正了解这段时期事件发生时间所需的火山灰床。然而，有一个地区保存了古代火山及其灰烬的记录：亚洲的一个古老的碎片，称为“西布玛苏”，由泰国、马来西亚、缅甸和西南部的中国的部分地区组成。在西布拉苏，灰烬和带有化石的沉积岩被层叠在许多厚厚的部分中，提供了从灰烬中获得高精度日期的机会，并洞察了地球历史上这一变革时期物理世界和生物世界之间的反馈。此外，该项目将纳入对美国三所院校研究生和本科生的培训，并将与教科文组织资助的关于西布玛苏的补充项目IGCP668合作，该项目支持来自发展中国家的科学家参加在泰国、缅甸、中国、日本和美国举行的会议和研讨会。该项目将确定在西布马苏地区发现的岩石的年龄，以了解地球与生命相互作用的模式。为此，该小组将在该项目中采用多学科方法，包括广泛的现场采样、化石的古地理分析、岩石地球化学特征和各种地质年代学技术。此外，该小组将与缅甸地质科学学会合作，以缅甸语制作一本图文并茂的儿童书籍，介绍芒特山的化石。兴芒果，以及他们对区域地球历史的看法。这个故事还将被修改为用于国家设计学院为印度全国排名的平面艺术学生举办的Chitrakatha工作坊，并将成为印度跨越特提斯海和与亚洲碰撞的动画故事的基础，该故事将在整个次大陆产生广泛的教育影响。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The time period between 505 to 485 million years ago was a dynamic time in Earth's history and included extensive volcanic activity and the evolution of ancient organisms that then occupied the world's shallow oceans. Unfortunately, there are few places in the world that have the volcanic ash beds that are needed to really understand the timing of events during this period. However, there is one region where the record of ancient volcanoes and their ashes has survived: an ancient fragment of Asia called "Sibumasu", which comprises parts of Thailand, Malaysia, Myanmar, and southwestern China. In Sibumasu, ashes and sedimentary rocks with fossils are layered in many thick sections, offering the opportunity to obtain high precision dates from the ashes, and insight into the feedbacks between the physical and biological worlds during this transformative time in Earth history. In addition, this project will incorporate the training of graduate and undergraduate students across three U.S. institutions and will partner with a complementary UNESCO funded IGCP668 project on Sibumasu that supports the participation of scientists from developing countries to attend meetings and workshops in Thailand, Myanmar, China, Japan, and the USA. This project will determine the age of the rocks found in the Sibumasu region in order to understand the pattern of Earth-Life interactions. To do this, the team will incorporate a multidisciplinary approach to the project including extensive field sampling, paleogeographic analyses of fossils, geochemical rock characterization, and a variety of geochronologic techniques. Further, the team will work in partnership with the Myanmar Geosciences Society to produce an illustrated children's book in Burmese featuring the fossils of Mt. Hsingmango, and what they say about regional Earth history. The story also will be modified for use with the National Institute of Design's chitrakatha workshop for India's nationally ranked graphic art students and will form the basis of an animated story of India's migration across the Tethys Ocean and collision with Asia that will have broad educational reach across the subcontinent.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.