U.S.-Mexico Planning Visit: Paleoecological and Evolutionary Significance of Invertebrate Fossil Assemblages from the Mexican Neogene, March 2007

这项美国墨西哥计划访问提案将支持一个由四名美国古生物学家组成的团队，包括具有同位素地球化学、古生态学、本科生研究和地层学背景的专家，在南佛罗里达大学的格雷戈里赫伯特博士和彼得·哈里斯博士的指导下，对墨西哥进行为期14天的计划访问。访问的主要目标是与该国的同事建立广泛的合作研究和教育伙伴关系，研究新近纪期间墨西哥湾西部海洋无脊椎生物的演变。 研究人员将与墨西哥国立自治大学地质研究所（UNAM）的古生物学家弗朗西斯科维拉维加博士会面，以确定恰帕斯州和韦拉克鲁斯州的实地考察地点，这将最好地支持该团队的多学科研究方法以及研究生和本科生教育的历史。该团队还计划调查国家古生物学学院（UNAM）和恰帕斯州自然与生态历史研究所（Instituto de Historia Natural y Ecologia de Chiapas）的无脊椎动物古生物学藏品，以确定这些重要藏品是否以及如何最好地融入未来的工作。研究人员计划在沉积地质学和古生物学方面提出合作建议，如果可能的话，作为此次访问的成果，还将为本科生提供研究经验。这次访问的研究成果应该有助于增加我们对最近地球历史上最引人注目的气候和海洋变化事件之一期间生物变化的理解，并有助于教育下一代古生物学家。

This U.S. Mexico Planning Visit proposal will support a team of four U.S. paleontologists, including specialists with background in isotope geochemistry, paleoecology, undergraduate research, and stratigraphy, under the direction of Dr. Gregory Herbert and Peter Harries of the University of South Florida on a 14 day planning visit to Mexico. The primary goal of the visit is to develop a broad collaborative research and education partnership with colleagues in that country to study the evolution of marine invertebrate biotas in the western Gulf of Mexico during the Neogene. The researchers will meet with Dr. Francisco Vera Vega, a paleontologist with the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico Instituto de Geologia (UNAM), to identify field sites in Chiapas and Veracruz that will best support the team's history of multidisciplinary approach to research and graduate and undergraduate education. The team also plans to survey the invertebrate paleontology collections of the Coleccion Nacional de Paleontologia (UNAM) and the Instituto de Historia Natural y Ecologia de Chiapas to determine whether and how these important collections can best be incorporated into future work. The investigators plan to develop collaborative proposals in Sedimentary Geology and Paleobiology and, if possible, Research Experiences for Undergraduates program as outcomes of this visit. The research outcomes of this visit should help to increase our understanding of biotic changes during one of the most dramatic episodes of climatic and oceanographic change in recent Earth history, as well as help educate the next generation of paleontologists.