9315831 Woodburne This award supports a study of terrestrial vertebrates from lower Cenozoic sediments on Seymour Island in the Antarctic Peninsula. Seymour Island contains rich and well preserved faunal and floral assemblages in a thick stratigraphic section that encompasses the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary. Previous work has yielded marsupial and placental mammal fossils. The lower Cenozoic Sobral Formation contains terrestrial sediments that are likely to yield substantially more fossil material and this material would represent the earliest Tertiary vertebrates known from Antarctica. The objectives of this proposal are to understand the role of high latitude locations in biological evolution and dispersal of vertebrates in the early Tertiary. This work is likely to lead to a better understanding of migration patterns and evolutionary relationships between Australian and South American vertebrates. ***
