This award provides funds for the establishment of a Research Training Group in Studies of Paleorecords of Global Change. The faculty group is a mixture of outstanding senior and junior investigators who come from a variety of disciplines. The funds will provide stipends for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, will support research participation by high school and undergraduate students, will defray part of the cost of the trainees' research and will enable the trainees to attend scientific meetings. In addition, funds will be used to purchase specialized research equipment to be used by trainees, and to bring investigators from other research and academic institutions to the Minnesota campus for workshops and symposia. There is now a significant need for the training of new researchers skilled in study of the environment. The use of new techniques taken from a variety of physical and biological disciplines is revolutionizing studies both of the environment and of its variation over the course of time. The quantitative analysis of past changes in the environment, including the study of particular ecosystems and their response to environmental stress, is of particular relevance to the current concerns about global change.
