Status: Ongoing
A collaborative National Science Foundation funded research project including a cross-disciplinary team from multiple institutions in the USA and Canada focused on the Cambrian succession in the southwest USA, particularly the Grand Canyon Tonto Group. Yukon University faculty are assisting this project through examination and analysis of microfossils found within the Tonto Group which provide age and environmental control on the deposition of this sequence.
Cambrian Microfossil Analysis of the Tonto Group, Grand Canyon, southwestern USA (SAG Student Project)
The Cambrian Tonto Group succession in the Grand Canyon, southwest USA, is currently under renewed geologic and palaeontologic scrutiny to assess and interpret the timing and speed of important events in the early history of life on Earth and the evolution of the North American continent more than half a billion years ago. Within a collaborative team of experts from the USA and Canada, this National Science Foundation funded project includes sub-projects ranging from detrital zircon and geochemical analyses to trilobite and microfossil biostratigraphy. Faculty and students from Yukon University with collaborators at the University of Calgary and Denver Museum of Nature and Science are investigating the occurrence and significance of microfossil remains of life from the Cambrian ~500 million years ago. These small shelly fossils (SSFs) found within layers of the Tonto Group provide useful clues aiding interpretation of the age and past environments of this sequence. The results of this study will help inform interpretation not only for the Tonto Group but also allow for correlation and interpretation of similar deposits found along the entire western margin of North America, from Mexico to the Yukon, Northwest Territories, and even Alaska. Yukon University involvement in this project will allow student involvement in original research working to unlock some of the outstanding questions related to the evolutionary explosion of complex life on our planet half a billion years ago.
Project Team:
Dr. James Hagadorn (Denver Museum of Nature and Science)
Dr. Karl Karlstrom (University of New Mexico)
Dr. Carol Dehler (Utah State University)
Dr. Fred Sundberg (Museum of Northern Arizona)
Dr. Mark Webster (University of Chicago)
Dr. Steve Rowland (University of Nevada)
Sheilany Bouchard (Yukon University SAG Student Researcher)
Dr. Chad Morgan (Yukon University)
Dr. Charles Henderson (University of Calgary)
Dr. Mark Schmitz (Boise State University)
Dr. John Foster (Paleo Solutions, Utah)
et al.
Funding
National Science Foundation (NSF)