This is a planning visit award for Professor Sandra I. Madar, of the Department of Biology at Hiram College, Professor Neil A. Wells, of the Department of Geology at Kent State University, and Dr. Lois J. Roe, of the Division of Ecosystem Sciences at the University of California at Berkeley, to meet with Professors Samir Hanna, Abdul Razak Al Saigh, and Carina Hoorn, of the Department of Earth Sciences at the Sultan Qaboos University in Oman. The purpose of the visit is to develop a cooperative research project to search the Paleocene-Eocene deposits in Oman for fossil specimens of early cetaceans, artiodactyls, proboscideans, and sirenians. It is thought that during the early Cenozoic these mammalian groups originated from or diversified around the regions of northern Africa or Indo-Pakistan. Professor Madar and her US and Omani colleagues will explore several locations in the relatively unknown area of the Tethys margin in Oman to determine which sites are the most promising for further exploration. The study of these fossil specimens should add significant new knowledge about the early evolution and dispersal of these ungulate groups, and should expand the current knowledge about their paleobiology and biogeography.
