This award is for support for a project to develop a data base from which regional metamorphic, deformation, and age relations of high- grade basement metamorphic rocks in the Transantarctic Mountains of Antarctica can be better understood. The rocks to be examined come from the Nimrod Group in the central Transantarctic Mountains and the Lanterman Metamorphic Complex in northern Victoria Land. Improved documentation of their petrogenesis, age, and tectonic evolution are important for a thorough understanding of how the paelo-Antarctc craton evolved and how the supercontinent Gondwana formed. This study will involve detailed field geologic mapping and sampling, structural, microstructural, kinematic and fabric analysis, metamorphic petrology and quantitative geothermobaro- metry, and Uranium-Lead geochronometry.
