U.S.-China Cooperative Research: A Comparative of Lower Cretaceous Pteridophytes in Northeast China with the Central and Eastern United States

9414058 Skog为PI访问中国南京考察蕨类化石材料，并与南京古生物研究所的孙戈博士进行交流提供了旅费和每日生活费，她最近与孙戈博士讨论了合作事宜。斯科格博士是一位知名的古植物学家，他将现代技术应用于我国蕨类植物化石材料的研究，帮助阐明了这些古代陆地植物的关系，并揭示了它们的分布和它们进化的古气候条件。她试图通过调查中国化石床上的材料，扩大对已灭绝蕨类植物与现存类群关系的了解。她的中国合作者在地质学方面有着出色的互补训练，因此这次合作将很好地涵盖地层细节或潜在问题，双方科学家/国家都将从中受益。尤其重要的是，鼓励这种合作，因为长期的政治局势直到最近才阻碍任何知识交流，也不允许借出标本进行科学研究。每一次这样的合作都有助于培养良好的工作关系和信任，对于学习西方方法/技术的中国科学家和能够获得系统分析材料的美国科学家来说都是非常有价值的，而这些材料以前无法纳入来自中国的材料。

9414058 Skog Travel costs and per diem are provided to enable the PI to visit Nanjing China where she will examine fossil fern material and interact with Dr. Sun Ge of the Paleontological Institute in Nanjing with whom she has recently discussed collaboration. Dr. Skog is an established paleobotanist whose application of modern technologies to the study of fossil fern material in this country has helped to elucideate relationships of these ancient land plants and revealed information about their distributions and the paleoclimate conditions under which they evolved. She seeks to broaden that knowledge of extinct fern relationships to extant taxa by investigating material from fossil beds in China. Her Chinese collaborator has excellent complementary training in Geology, so stratigraphic details or potential problems will be well covered in this collaboration from which both scientists/countries serve to benefit. It is especially important that such collaborations be encouraged because of the long term political situation which, until very recently, precluded any intellectual exchange and would not permit the loan of specimens for scientific study. Every such collaboration that serves to foster good working relationships and trust is of great value to the Chinese scientists who will learn western methodologies/technologies and to U.S. scientists who will have access to material which allows systematic analyses that previously could not incorporate material from China.