OPP 9614847 Taylor and Taylor Abstract This award supports a project to systematically collect and analyze the Jurassic fossil floras from three levels at Carapace Nunatak, in southern Victoria Land, and to complete reconnaissance for similar aged deposits at Shapeless Mountain near the head of Wright Valley. These floras represent the most extensive deposits of Jurassic fossil plants that are known from the continental portion of Antarctica. They are poorly known, both from a biostratigraphic and floristic standpoint, and as such are important not only to our understanding of floral changes in Antarctica, but also to correlations with other Gondwana continents. In addition to impressions and compressions, the site also contains permineralized specimens. In this rare preservation type, cells and tissue systems are intact so that details about the anatomy and morphology of these Jurassic plants can be evaluated. The preservation of the permineralized floral elements at Carapace is identical to those of Permian and Triassic age that have been studied in over the past ten years. As a result a continuum of structurally preserved plant fossils extending from the Permian into the Upper Jurassic of Antarctica are available for examination. In this context it will be possible to examine details of seed plant growth, development and evolution at high paleolatitudes during the latter stages of the Paleozoic and extending into the Jurassic. The few specimens collected during an earlier reconnaissance at Carapace Nunatak suggest a flora rich in conifers and seed ferns. The conifer components will be important in evaluating basal character states within the major conifer families, while the seed ferns will be useful in evaluating the characters and relationships of these Mesozoic gymnosperms to the geologically younger flowering plants. The site also contains some woody specimens (small twigs, fragments of wood), in which the tree rings will be analyzed and com pared with those from other high latitude sites, both older (Permian and Triassic) and younger (Cretaceous, Tertiary). Because of the patchy nature of the silicification and the discontinuous sedimentary beds, field work is anticipated to involve primarily day trips via helicopter to the sites immediately followed by sectioning of material in the Crary Laboratory at McMurdo Station in order to reduce the collecting of unproductive material.
