Hochauflösende Chronologie des Mittel- und Ober-Miozäns Süddeutschlands

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Madelaine Böhme
• Subject Area: Palaeontology
• Term: from 2010 to 2015
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 163317663

During the last years process-oriented research increase the needs on precise temporal framework of continental sediments, because many processes in climatology, evolution, geodynamics and vegetation dynamics proceed on a temporal scale of 100 kyrs. However, the current temporal resolution of terrestrial Neogene sediments is mostly inadequate. This is especially true for the youngest sediments (younger than 14 Ma) of the North Alpine Foreland Basin (NAFB), one of the largest Neogene basins in Europe. Important global and regional processes occur during this time span for which rates and controlling mechanisms are still inadequately understood (i.a. end of the Miocene climatic optimum and stepwise intensifica-tion of global cooling, development of open vegetation in mid-latitudes, end of the molasse sedimentation, uplift of the Bohemian Massif and the Eastern Alps, change of the basin drainage direction from E-W to W-E, large-scale fluctuation in the European hydrologic cycle, immigration of first hominids into Europe). The main objective of the project is to develop a high-resolution geochronology (~100 kyr) of the NAFB for the time interval 14 to ~9 myr. To achieve this aim an integration of bio-, litho-, and magnetostratigraphy is required, i.e. the establishment of a taxon-range-zonation based on evolutionary lineages of small mammals and the correlation of the local bio-magnetostratigraphy to the Global Polarity Time Scale. The expected gain of knowledge is crucial for continuative paleobiologic, -climatologic and geologic questions by providing a high-resolution chronology to understand causal links between orogeny, basin evolution, sedimentology, biotic evolution, and climate.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Participating Person: Professor Dr. Valerian Bachtadse