Degenerating Families of Riemann Surfaces

For several years it has been conjectured that the moduli of degenerating families of conformally finite Riemann surfaces with signature may be studied using the Bers embedding T(G) of the Teichmuiller space. In a previous paper ([2], see also Marden [17]) we examined a distinguished classthe regular b-groups-of Kleinian groups lying in AT(G). The augmented Teichmiiller space T(G) is the union of T(G) with the regular b-groups on its boundary.