This award provides partial support of a three day conference dealing with "The Role of the Southern Ocean and Antarctica in Global Change: an Ocean Drilling Perspective" to be held at the University of California at Santa Barbara. The primary objective will be to discuss and synthesize the data from the recent Antarctic and Subantarctic Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Legs 113, 114, 119, 120 and 121. The emphasis will be to develop a better understanding of the environmental and biotic evolution of the Antarctic region during the Late Cretaceous through the Cenozoic and the effect this had on global environmental evolution. The proposed conference will provide an impetus for the construction of a set of broad syntheses of Late Cretaceous- Cenozoic environmental evolution of the Antarctic region based on results largely gained during these expeditions. The synthesis papers presented at the meeting will be published (after peer review) in a synthesis volume either through in Ocean Drilling Program or in the American Geophysical Union's Antarctic Research Series.
