Acknowledgment

I would like to thank Brian McIntyre for training us with electron microscopic techniques. I would specially thank him for his guidance and support throughout the duration of my project work and for allowing me to work independently. I want to thank my TA Maria Sepulveda and Sergey Korjenevski for helping me with the labwork. I want to thank my advisor Asish Basu for his guidance, Gerry Kloc for preparing the thin sections and Dr. Galina Nestell at the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas , Arlington for providing me with the fossil samples from Vietnam. I also want to thank Mahul Chakraborty for his feedback and guidance with the website development.