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Paleontology, Sedimentology and Stratigraphy
Faculty:  R. Ethington, K. MacLeod, M. Underwood
 

Paleontological and sedimentological studies at the University of Missouri are broad and interdisciplinary. Faculty and students are using traditional and novel techniques to address problems ranging from regional and global correlation, to paleobiology and mass extinctions, to stratigraphic and sedimentological controls on subduction zone seismicity, to black shales. These projects address samples ranging in age from the modern to the Precambrian. Achieving research goals is facilitated by the broad range of analytical tools and expertise available in the department to characterize the fossil content, mineralogy, chemistry, and isotopic composition of samples being studied. Field work figures prominently in most projects. Missouri's cratonic setting notwithstanding, faculty and students routinely go to sea, and land-based studies include work in North America as well as recent work on four other continents.

Paleozoic stratigraphy is a traditional strength of the department, and research in this area benefits from the extensive fossil collections from past MU paleontologists. The Branson and Mehl conodont collection, in particular, is one of the major resource collections in the world. Taxonomic and biostratigraphic refinement of Late Cambrian-Ordovician conodonts from the mid-continent and western United States are ongoing. In addition, current research projects are incorporating stable isotopic measurements on phosphates and carbonates to test and refine paleontologically-based correlations and better understand depositional conditions.
 

At the physical/tectonic end of the spectrum, sediments accumulating on submarine fans, in trenches, and being incorporated in accretionary prisms are influenced by regional-scale patterns of dispersal for both sand and clay-sized sediment and the climate and tectonics in the source region. The propagation of and movement along faults in subduction zones, in turn, is influenced by the nature of the sediments in the accretionary prism and the diagenetic changes they undergo as they move into the subduction zone. Thus, large subduction zone earthquakes may be controlled in part by clay mineralology and clay diagenesis. Funded projects are investigating these possibilities in the Nankai trough and Cascadia subduction zone.

Coring off Costa Rica

Last Modified: winter 2008