Neogene Rocks and Faunas, Yushe Basin, Shanxi, P.R.C.

申请资金支持为期两年的亚洲晚新近纪陆相古气候学、动物地理学和生物年代学研究。南亚Siwalik群（巴基斯坦）的相关数据表明，随着时间的推移，重要的古环境变化部分反映了季风的发展。我们建议在中国山西榆树盆地开发第二个数据源，这是东亚已知的最长的（晚中新世至早更新世）化石中新系地层序列。对榆树盆地动物史的详细认识，结合古地磁反转地层学的精确年代学，将有助于重建亚洲陆地古气候学。通过参考巴基斯坦和中新世海洋的序列，我们的结果将显示哪些陆地气候趋势是局部的，哪些可能是全球范围的。玉树盆地脊椎动物化石记录的发展将提供哺乳动物古生物地理学的信息，特别是与北美的交换事件有关。东亚动物演替的记录也将为确定亚洲省级哺乳动物年龄提供必要的生物地层学基础。拟议的研究是与北京IVPP的中国同事的一个联合项目，我们的机构共同拥有榆树盆地未研究的主要化石收藏。本建议特别关注增加微型哺乳动物的收集，并构建精确的磁年代学，作为古气候学，古生物地理学和生物年代学综合所需的数据贡献。

Funds are requested to support two years of research on late Neogene terrestrial Paleoclimatology, zoogeography, and biochronology of Asia. Pertinent data are available for the Siwalik group of southern Asia (Pakistan), and indicate important paleoenvironmental changes through time, reflecting in part, the development of monsoons. We propose to develop a second data source in the Yushe Basin, Shanxi, PRC, the longest (late Miocene through early Pleistocene) sequence of fossiliferous Neogene strata known in eastern Asia. Detailed knowledge of the faunal history of Yushe Basin, coupled with a precise chronology based on paleomagnetic reversal stratigraphy, will contribute to reconstructing Asian terrestrial paleoclimatology. By reference to sequences from Pakistan and the Miocene oceans, our results will show which terrestrial climatologic trends were local, and which may have been worldwide in scope. Development of the vertebrate fossil record of the Yushe Basin will provide information on mammalian paleobiogeography, with particular relevance to interchange events with North America. Documentation of East Asian faunal succession will also provide the biostratigraphic basis necessary to define Asian provincial mammal ages. The proposed research is a joint project with Chinese colleagues at the IVPP, Beijing, and our institutions jointly contain major unstudied fossil collections from Yushe Basin. This proposal is specifically concerned with augmenting the collections of micromammals, and constructing a precise magnetochronology, as a contribution of data necessary for paleoclimatologic, paleobiogeographic, and biochronologic syntheses.