This record shows changes in the faunal composition and, by inference, in climate during the last interstadial, the last glacial maximum and post-glacial time. A similar pattern has been documented in late Quaternary Australian fossil faunas. On both continents, the changes in the faunas indicate responses to changes in seasonality and suggest that the glacial climates probably have no precise modern analogs. We have compiled a data base of the distributions of mammal species in the United States for the last 40,000 years. Future work will add data from Canada, Alaska and Mexico to create a data base for all of North America.
Work is also in progress to compile a similar data base for Australia.
Another project has just been initiated on the Neogene fissure fills of Barrow Island, off the northwest coast of Australia. Preliminary work demonstrates the presence of fossiliferous deposits which are yet to be dated. These are the first records of fossil faunas from that part of Australia and may well contribute to our knowledge of the history of the dry country fauna. Skull and jaws of the giant ground sloth, Eremotherium , from Lavaca Bay, Texas.