| Anotation: | The aim of this multidisciplinary research project is to understand the evolutionary dynamics of the Laurasian climate and vertebrate fauna using modern quantitative analytical and imaging techniques and biostatistical processing of fossilized tissues and abiotic structures. The geological setting to be explored in this research comprises the Middle Jurassic to Upper Cretaceous deposits in remote areas of Inner Mongolia and Liaoning provinces in China. The large-scale and vegetation free geological exposures at the surface in this region provide a unique study area within which primary geological data and fossil specimens can easily be collected. As this vast area has remained mostly under-explored, we expect to make new paleontological discoveries of both regional and global importance. This study represents the first time such a synergistic and allencompassing analysis of these important fossil beds has been undertaken. These deposits were formed under very important and unique paleogeographic, environmental and climatic conditions that controlled the regional endemism and faunal and floral turnovers. Dynamics changes of the vertebrate paleofauna determines our major research activities in the field of paleoclimatology, paleogeography, paleobiology, and paleogenomics. Finally, this project has been arranged in collaboration with Inner Mongolia Museum of Natural History, and with Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute (JASRI Spring-8). We shall use Slovak-Chinese Dinosaur Expeditions (SCDE) as the public relation name of this project for a large-scale dissemination of the project outcomes.
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