Cool Stars 14 - Submitted Abstract # 268 This version created on 05 October 2006 A Distibuted Population of Low Mass Pre-Main Sequence Stars Near the Taurus Molecular Clouds C.L. Slesnick J.M. Carpenter L.A. Hillenbrand E.E. Mamajek We are conducting a wide-field (~250 square degrees) B,R,I photometric monitoring campaign to identify new young and intermediate-age objects towards the ~1 Myr-old Taurus star-forming region. Follow-up optical spectroscopy led to identification of 42 new low mass pre-main sequence stars, of which approximately half exhibit surface gravity signatures similar to members of Taurus while the other half exhibit surface gravity signatures similar to members of the somewhat older ~5 Myr-old Upper Sco association. The pre-main sequence stars are spread over ~35 deg, and many are located well outside of previously explored regions. From assessment of the spatial and proper motion distributions, we argue that the new pre-main sequence stars identified far from the clouds cannot have originated from the vicinity of the 1-2 Myr-old subclusters which contain the bulk of the identified Taurus members, but instead represent a newly-identified area of recent star-formation near the clouds. ----------------------------------