Principal investigator

• Olivier CHAVASSEAU (PALEVOPRIM)

Research question

The main goal of this mission is to better understand the paleobiodiversity and the evolution of mammal faunas from the Cenozoic of southeastern Asia, by contributing with new data from the continental basins of Vietnam.

Some results

This mission produced new data from the Na Duong Basin, including the description of three new species of anthracotheres (a group of mammals related to hippopotamuses). This helped defining the biochronological age of the site, from the beginning to the middle of the late Eocene (ca. 38 Ma-36 Ma). This time interval was not yet documented in southeastern Asia. It also demonstrated the existence of major faunal exchanges during the middle/late Eocene at regional scale (southeastern Asia and southern China) but also with Africa.

Mission organization

Since 2012, this mission has involved members of PALEVOPRIM and of the Institute of Marine Geology and Geophysics at Hanoi, belonging to the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology (VAST).

Funding

The French-Vietnamese Paleontological Mission benefited from the support of the CNRS through the project PICS 2015-2017 « Paleontology of Tertiary continental basins in Vietnam: biodiversity, evolution of mammals and tectonic implications ».