These studies are directed toward describing enamel thickness in relation to animal's size in order to make relevant comparisons among taxa. The studies of accretionary rates use features of enamel microstructure to determine developmental homology. Present work is focused on extant and extinct great apes, Plio-Pleistocene hominid, and platyrrhine primates. Miocene fossil hominoids and the comparative anatomy of extant apes These studies emphasize field research and systematic analyses of fossil apes. Studies of modern hominoid comparative anatomy are geared to developing an interpretive framework for the fossil specimens in terms of character analysis for phylogeny reconstruction and models for the definition of paleospecies among morphologically homogeneous fossil samples.
Field studies are in progress at tow sites in Turkey.
The early middle Miocene site at Pasalar, Turkey has been the focus of fieldwork from 1983-1989 and has provided more than 600 specimens of fossil ape. In 1989 Dr. Martin and his colleague, Professor Alpagut of the University of Ankara, launched a new project in Kazan Province in Turkey. The late Miocene Sinap Formation that outcrops in this area has provided very complete craniodental fossil material that is assigned to Sivapithecus meteai. This area will be the focus of a major field project whose aims will be to recover additional fossil hominoi8d, and to place these within a regional biostratigraphic and paleoecological framework. This research is directed at developing an understanding of distribution of enamel prism packing variants among modern primates.