The late Paleozoic record of the Greater Ancestral Rocky Mountains (GARM) is an unparalleled natural laboratory for undertaking an integrated, holistic study of various components of the Earth System-including the lithosphere (tectonics), atmosphere (climate), hydrosphere (eustasy) and biosphere, and links among these systems. Unlike most regions of the world, the GARM is easily accessible, and fully endowed with a rich and well-constrained geological dataset; accordingly the fundamentals of its geology are well known in the form of a large database that includes a detailed published literature and maps, and huge volumes of industry (well and seismic) data. Furthermore, its geological history is a complex meld of an enigmatic tectonic event that occurred during the last pre-Quaternary icehouse; consequently, the stratigraphic record here preserves key information on the character of (1) intraplate tectonics, including the possible role of structural inheritance as well as the legacy of later Laramide events; (2) climate transitions of both high- and low-frequencies (e.g. greenhouse-icehouse-greenhouse, glacial-interglacial, zonal-monsoonal); (3) eustatic variations in an icehouse world; (4) the interactions between tectonics and climate (e.g. through topography), tectonics and eustasy, eustasy and climate, and impacts/links to the biosphere (e.g. evolution-extinction events, etc). The research initiative that will be discussed at this workshop will involve and impact numerous professionals and students. The expected result from this workshop is a position paper for support of integrated, multidisciplinary studies of various "geosystems" aspects of this natural laboratory known as the Greater Ancestral Rocky Mountains.
