Biostratigraphic Investigations: Refining the Geologic Time Scale to Calibrate the Past and Predict Climate Change and Mass Extinction Effects

今天，世界受到气候变化、物种灭绝以及动植物栖息地变化等关键问题的影响，因为海平面和温度的上升影响了生物的生存环境。我对二叠纪系统（2.992.52亿年前）的研究旨在阐明可能是最好的古代时间间隔，以显示这些问题如何影响过去地球上的生命。深度时间研究无法与近时间研究的分辨率相匹配，但这些事件已经经历了完整的过程，并提供了自然系统如何适应气候变化的例子。二叠纪记录了地球上倒数第二个冰河时代和最大规模的物种灭绝。我对二叠纪末大灭绝的研究促成了一种逐渐形成的共识，即它是由气候变化造成的，是由一个名为西伯利亚圈闭的火山地区大量释放的气体引发的。气候变化的影响在海洋和陆地环境中都是明显的，但相对时间尚未确定。

Today, the world is affected by critical issues such as climate change, species extinction, and changes to where plants and animals thrive because rising ocean levels and temperatures affect where organisms can live. My research on the Permian System (299 252 million years ago) aims to illuminate what may well be the best ancient time interval to show how these issues affected life on the planet in the past. Deep-time studies do not match resolution of near-time studies, but these events have run their full course and provide examples of how natural systems adapted as climate changed. The Permian records the Earth's penultimate ice age and its largest mass extinction. My research on the end-Permian mass extinction has contributed to the emerging consensus that it resulted from climate change, triggered by a massive release of gases from a volcanic region called the Siberian Traps. The impact of climate change is evident in both marine and land-based environments, but the relative timing is not resolved. As a paleontologist, I set both the international context and serve as the time-keeper to determine what happened and when. I do this through my study of microfossils called conodonts that are common in most rock types throughout the Permian. Evolution allows us to use them as clocks to calibrate deep time. Small changes in their structure and composition allow us to identify and correlate specific intervals of time around the world (biostratigraphy) and contribute to the calibration of the Geologic Time Scale one of the fundamental tools of our discipline. My research team is multidisciplinary, including geochronologists, geochemists, and other paleontologists in academic institutions around the world. My graduate and undergraduate students, and post-doctoral scholars, are given the opportunity to become part of these collaborations. The twelve projects comprising my proposed research program, encompass six long-term objectives designed to address issues around timing of migration and extinction related to Permian climate changes, and in so doing provide a template for all other stratigraphic studies. This is accomplished by investigating regions around the world, specifically western Canada, mid-continent USA, and south China. These areas were once part of the ancient Tethys Sea and the eastern margin of the Panthalassic Ocean (similar to the Mediterranean Sea and Pacific Ocean today). Many projects involve a field component, but will also use archived materials. All projects include laboratory research involving the recovery of conodonts and other fossils from the rock matrix, and include collection of additional geochemical data. The details of timing from the small fossil clocks we discover in the rock can then be used to decipher the history of basins around the world, as well as their potential for energy resources. It allows us to see not just Earth's history, but also our possible future.