IEDA
Project Information
Collaborative Research: Understanding the evolution of high-latitude Permo-Triassic paleoenvironments and their vertebrate communities
Start Date:
2016-09-01
End Date:
2022-08-31
Description/Abstract
Around 252 million years ago, a major mass extinction wiped out upwards of 90% of species on Earth. Coincident with this extinction, the Antarctic portion of the supercontinent of Pangea transitioned to a warmer climatic regime and became devoid of glaciers. Little is known about the survivors of the extinction in Antarctica, although it has been hypothesized that the continent's high latitude location shielded it from the worst of the extinction's effects. The Shackleton Glacier region is the best place to study this extinction in Antarctica because it exposes an abundance of correct age rocks and relevant fossils were found there in the 1960s and 1980s. For this research, paleontologists will study fossil vertebrates that span from about 260 to 240 million years ago to understand how life evolved at high latitudes in the face of massive climate change. In addition, geologists will use fossil soils and fossil plant matter to more precisely reconstruct the climate of Antarctica across this extinction boundary. These data will allow for a more complete understanding of ancient climates and how Antarctic life compared to that at lower latitudes. Undergraduate and graduate students will be actively involved in this research. Public engagement in Antarctic science will be accomplished at several natural history museums. This three-year project will examine the evolution of Permo-Triassic paleoenvironments and their vertebrate communities by conducting fieldwork in the Shackleton Glacier region of Antarctica. The team will characterize the Permo-Triassic boundary within Shackleton area strata and correlate it to other stratigraphic successions in the region (e.g. via stable carbon isotope stratigraphy of fossilized plant organic matter). The researchers will use multiple types of data to assess the paleoenvironment, including: 1) paleosol morphology; 2) paleosol geochemistry; 3) pedogenic organic matter; and 4) fossil wood chronology and stable isotopes. The Fremouw Formation of Antarctica preserves the highest paleolatitude (~70° S) tetrapod fauna of the entire Triassic and thus has the potential to shed important light on the evolution of polar life during the early Mesozoic. The biology of Triassic vertebrates from Antarctica will be compared to conspecifics from lower paleolatitudes through analysis of growth in bone and tusk histology. An interdisciplinary approach will be used to address relationships between environmental change, faunal composition, and biogeographic patterns in the context of the high-latitude strata preserved in the Buckley and Fremouw formations in the Shackleton Glacier region.
Personnel
Person Role
Sidor, Christian Investigator and contact
Smith, Nathan Investigator
Makovicky, Peter Investigator
Tabor, Neil Investigator
Funding
Antarctic Earth Sciences Award # 2001033
Antarctic Earth Sciences Award # 1341645
Antarctic Earth Sciences Award # 1341475
Antarctic Earth Sciences Award # 1341376
Antarctic Earth Sciences Award # 1341304
AMD - DIF Record(s)
Deployment
Deployment Type
Shackleton Glacier Deep Field Camp field camp
Data Management Plan
Product Level:
0 (raw data)
Datasets
Repository Title (link) Format(s) Status
USAP-DC Lower Triassic Antarctic vertebrate fossils at Field Museum, Chicago, IL Excel exists
Publications
  1. Whitney, M.R, and C.A. Sidor. 2020. Evidence of torpor in the tusks of Lystrosaurus from the Early Triassic of Antarctica. Nature Communications Biology. (doi:10.1038/s42003-020-01207-6 )
  2. Whitney, M.R., Y.T. Tse, and C.A. Sidor. 2019. Histological evidence of trauma in tusks of southern African dicynodonts. Palaeontologia Africana 53:75–80
  3. Gee, B.M., Sidor, C.A. 2021. First record of the amphibamiform Micropholis stowi from the lower Fremouw Formation (Lower Triassic) of Antarctica. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. (doi:10.1080/02724634.2021.1904251)
  4. Gianechini, F. A., Makovicky, P. J., Apesteguía, S., & Cerda, I. (2018). Postcranial skeletal anatomy of the holotype and referred specimens of Buitreraptor gonzalezorum Makovicky, Apesteguía and Agnolín 2005 (Theropoda, Dromaeosauridae), from the Late Cretaceous of Patagonia. PeerJ, 6, e4558. (doi:10.7717/peerj.4558)
  5. Spiekman, S. N. F. (2018). A new specimen of Prolacerta broomi from the lower Fremouw Formation (Early Triassic) of Antarctica, its biogeographical implications and a taxonomic revision. Scientific Reports, 8(1). (doi:10.1038/s41598-018-36499-6)
  6. Whitney, M. R., & Sidor, C. A. (2020). Evidence of torpor in the tusks of Lystrosaurus from the Early Triassic of Antarctica. Communications Biology, 3(1). (doi:10.1038/s42003-020-01207-6)
  7. Prieto‐Márquez, A., Garcia‐Porta, J., Joshi, S. H., Norell, M. A., & Makovicky, P. J. (2020). Modularity and heterochrony in the evolution of the ceratopsian dinosaur frill. Ecology and Evolution, 10(13), 6288–6309. (doi:10.1002/ece3.6361)
  8. Cullen, T. M., Canale, J. I., Apesteguía, S., Smith, N. D., Hu, D., & Makovicky, P. J. (2020). Osteohistological analyses reveal diverse strategies of theropod dinosaur body-size evolution. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 287(1939), 20202258. (doi:10.1098/rspb.2020.2258)
  9. Cullen, T. M., Brown, C. M., Chiba, K., Brink, K. S., Makovicky, P. J., & Evans, D. C. (2021). Growth variability, dimensional scaling, and the interpretation of osteohistological growth data. Biology Letters, 17(11). (doi:10.1098/rsbl.2021.0383)
  10. Gee, B. M., Makovicky, P. J., & Sidor, C. A. (2021). Upside down: “Cryobatrachus” and the lydekkerinid record from Antarctica. Journal of Paleontology, 1–26. (doi:10.1017/jpa.2021.115)
  11. Woolley, C. H., Smith, N. D., & Sertich, J. J. W. (2020). New fossil lizard specimens from a poorly-known squamate assemblage in the Upper Cretaceous (Campanian) San Juan Basin, New Mexico, USA. PeerJ, 8, e8846. (doi:10.7717/peerj.8846)
  12. Saitta, E. T., Stockdale, M. T., Longrich, N. R., Bonhomme, V., Benton, M. J., Cuthill, I. C., & Makovicky, P. J. (2020). An effect size statistical framework for investigating sexual dimorphism in non-avian dinosaurs and other extinct taxa. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 131(2), 231–273. (doi:10.1093/biolinnean/blaa105)
Platforms and Instruments

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