Knowledge Resource Center for Ecological Environment in Arid Area
| 项目编号 | 0230696 |
| Terrestrial Paleoecology and Sedimentary Environment of the Meyer Desert Formation, Beardmore Glacier, Transantarctic Mountains | |
| Allan Ashworth | |
| 主持机构 | North Dakota State University Fargo |
| 开始日期 | 2003-06-01 |
| 结束日期 | 2010-02-28 |
| 资助经费 | 220898(USD) |
| 项目类别 | Continuing Grant |
| 资助机构 | US-NSF（美国国家科学基金会） |
| 项目所属计划 | ANTARCTIC EARTH SCIENCES |
| 语种 | 英语 |
| 国家 | 美国 |
| 英文简介 | This award, provided by the Antarctic Geology and Geophysics Program of the Office of Polar Programs, supports a study of the paleobiology of the late Cenozoic Meyer Desert Formation. Terrestrial fossils recovered from the Beogene Meyer Desert Formation (Sirius Group) are providing paleoclimatic information about the interior of Antarctica before the growth of the great ice sheets. The site is located on the Upper Beardmore Glacier at latitude 85S, about 500 km from the South Pole. Fossils of numerous types of organisms occur in siltstone, marlstone and lithified peat that are interbedded with lodgment tills. Wood and leaves of Nothofagus (southern beech) were discovered many years ago but since 1995 the fossils now include seeds of several species of vascular plants, including Ranunculus (buttercups), the stems and leaves of several species of mosses, body parts of beetles, including two weevil species, a puparium of a higher fly, shells of freshwater mollusks, including a lymnaeid gastropod and sphaeriid clam, valves of an ostracod, and the tooth of a fish. The largest fossils at the site are cushions of vascular plants buried in their growth positions by sediments of glacial outwash. The sediments were deposited in stream channels and shallow pools associated with moraines that had been colonized by a tundra-like vegetation in that harbored insects and mollusks. Mean summer temperatures are estimated to have been about 4-5C for at least three months per year. The fossils provide the best evidence so far obtained of how much heat the atmosphere near the South Pole can hold. The fossils represent organisms that inhabited Antarctica until climate change forced their extinction. The fossils are fragmentary but hold the promise that better-preserved specimens are available for phylogenetic and biogeographic studies. They are more closely related to living terrestrial and freshwater organisms than any other fossils so far discovered in Antarctica. They are most probably the direct descendants of an ancient Antarctic biota that was part of Gondwana. Until the discovery of the Meyer Desert Formation, no fossils of terrestrial organisms, except for pollen and spores, were available to answer questions about evolutionary relationships between organisms distributed in southern South America, Australia, New Zealand, and the subantarctic islands. The research team will revisit Meyer Desert Formation exposed in the Oliver Bluffs on the Beardmore Glacier. Several studies will be conducted including locating and sampling new fossiliferous horizons, constructing an accurately scaled and correlated cross-section of the complex facies, and collecting samples for a pilot project to directly date the deposits using an approach involving a combination of several cosmogenic nuclide systems. Paleontological studies will focus on enhancing paleoenvironmental interpretations and on integrating the fossils in biogeographic studies. The startigraphic and dating studies will focus on resolving differences between interpretations of sedimentary environments. Collectively, the studies will provide information that should help to address larger questions about the size and the dynamics of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet during the Neogene. There is extensive public interest in Antarctica in part because of the romance of exploration but also because of the threat of global warming and the potential instability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. That interest has been fueled recently by reports of the collapse of the Larsen B Ice Shelf and the release of huge icebergs, like B17, to the Southern Ocean. Because Antarctica exerts a huge influence on the Earth's climate, oceanic circulation and sea level, knowledge about warmer climates during the Neogene is of broad interest. Media, educators and researchers will be able to access information about the studies, including a photographic archive for the fossils, through links to "Biota Austarlis Terrestris," an existing searchable database for the terrestrial and freshwater organisms of Antarctica and the subantarctic islands. |
| 来源学科分类 | Geosciences |
| URL | https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0230696 |
| 资源类型 | 项目 |
| 条目标识符 | http://119.78.100.177/qdio/handle/2XILL650/342303 |
| 推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714 | Allan Ashworth.Terrestrial Paleoecology and Sedimentary Environment of the Meyer Desert Formation, Beardmore Glacier, Transantarctic Mountains.2003. |
| 条目包含的文件 | 条目无相关文件。 | |||||
| 个性服务 |
| 推荐该条目 |
| 保存到收藏夹 |
| 导出为Endnote文件 |
| 谷歌学术 |
| 谷歌学术中相似的文章 |
| [Allan Ashworth]的文章 |
| 百度学术 |
| 百度学术中相似的文章 |
| [Allan Ashworth]的文章 |
| 必应学术 |
| 必应学术中相似的文章 |
| [Allan Ashworth]的文章 |
| 相关权益政策 |
| 暂无数据 |
| 收藏/分享 |
除非特别说明，本系统中所有内容都受版权保护，并保留所有权利。
