This International Research Experience for Students (IRES) will support Isabel P. Montanez of the University of California ? Davis and John L. Isbell of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in a research collaboration with Carlos Oscar Limarino and Sergio Marenssi of Buenos Aires University in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The researchers intend to facilitate the integrated research and educational training of geoscience students in deep-time paleoclimatology in western South America. This research will produce the first geo-chronologically (U-Pb) calibrated, high-resolution data sets for the high latitudes of western Gondwana.Gondwana was the southern continent that existed 500 to 200 millions years ago and included most of today?s South America.
The collaborators will bring complementary skills to the project with a program that includes various components: (a) an integrated stratigraphic, sedimentologic, paleontologic, and geochemical study in western Argentina, (b) research training for undergraduate and graduate students prior to and after the field study, and (c) mentoring activities to promote career-building. The IRES will train 4 U.S. graduate and up to 9 undergraduate students in student-faculty team based projects. The PIs will integrate traditionally underrepresented students into the program through their current NSF-funded ?Geodiversity initiatives.? Results will be disseminated through public presentations, research publications, and educational materials for undergraduates and high school students.
This research is giving geoscientists a better understanding of how environmental change has occurred through deep time. Our IRES findings are changing the views of the duration and extent of the Late Paleozoic Ice Age and the response of the marine biota to that event. Sedimentological evidence indicates that the ice age consisted of multiple glaciations lasting several million years separated by non-glacial intervals of equal duration. Glacial events were triggered by low levels of atmospheric CO2, high latitude positions of landmasses, and by mountain building that uplifted the land surface above elevations cold enough to grow glaciers. Deglaciation was triggered by rising levels of atmospheric CO2 and subsidence of highlands below elevations capable of thermally sustaining ice sheets. Our studies show that fauna proximal to glacial ice experienced very different environmental conditions, especially during times of glacial retreat than did fauna distal to the ice front or to the biota living in low paleo-latitudes. The combined sedimentologic, paleoecologic, and paleoenvironmental emphases of this project are contributing to a better understanding of short-term and broad-scale biotic change in response to climate changes concomitant with varying glaciation history. To date, 1 M.S. student (UWM) and 1 Ph.D. student (UC-Davis) have finished their degrees on work conducted on this project. Two UWM graduate students (1 Ph.D. and 1 M.S.) are nearing completion of their degrees, and one Ph.D. student is continuing her work. Two Argentinean students have also finished their Ph.D. degrees. Ten undergraduate students from UWM also participated in the research on this grant. The findings for this project are the subject of 29 journal publications and conference proceedings. Both co-PIs continue to incorporate their work into class content and projects. Several upper level classes have been taught by both co-PIs to help students prepare for work on this project. The Argentina research has been presented to 1 junior high and 28 elementary school classes in southeastern Wisconsin, and to the undergraduate Biology Club at UWM. Forty K-8 science teachers in the Milwaukee Public School System (MPS) and 50 science teachers from suburban schools in southeastern Wisconsin have also been introduced to topics associated with this project under Project BEST and Project FEST, which is designed to increase science content for science classes. A better understanding of climate change in deep time will aid humankind as we collectively try to determine how best to proceed with Modern data on climate change. This project has also given 17 young scientists a deeper understanding of climate change and its effect on Earth's biota. These students are well-prepared to discuss these matters with other citizens. All of the students involved with this project have expressed the desire to conduct graduate work in the Geosciences. All of them wish to have careers in which educating the public on climate change, geology, and paleontology is a large part of the job.
