On the Inside of Travellers: Morphology of Early Juvenile Ammonites And Their Implications for Faunal Dynamics in the Late Cretaceous

• Applicant: Privatdozentin Dr. Christina Ifrim
• Subject Area: Palaeontology
• Term: from 2014 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 260376695

Ammonoidea are abundant, widespread and even popular fossils, many are useful as precise biostratigraphic indices. Due to the lack of soft part preservation, little is known about the organism itself. Ammonoidea in their richness could provide a proxy for the impact of climatic and palaeoceanograpic changes on microorganisms in Earth history, if they were better understood as organisms. The aim of the proposed project is a species-based study and correlation of the morphology of the innermost whorls, i.e. the suspected phase of drift in oceanic currents, and its connection with the palaeobiogeographical distribution of the considered species in several time slices throughout the Late Cretaceous. Like that, conclusions on the impacts of the many environmental changes of the Late Cretaceous on the ammonoidea as organisms can be drawn. Grinding tomography will be used and at the same time tested for further applications such as virtual storage of fossils, e.g. in unstable types of preservation.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Participating Institution: Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua ; Facultad de Ingeniería; Museo del Desierto