Journal ArticleDOI
Pennsylvanian tropical rain forests responded to glacial-interglacial rhythms
TLDR
In this paper, a sequence-stratigraphic analysis of megafloral and palynofloral assemblages within the Westphalian D-Cantabrian Sydney Mines Formation of eastern Canada is presented.Abstract:
Pennsylvanian tropical rain forests flourished during an icehouse climate mode. Although it is well established that Milankovitch-band glacial-interglacial rhythms caused marked synchronous changes in Pennsylvanian tropical climate and sea level, little is known of vegetation response to orbital forcing. This knowledge gap has now been addressed through sequence- stratigraphic analysis of megafloral and palynofloral assemblages within the Westphalian D–Cantabrian Sydney Mines Formation of eastern Canada. This succession was deposited in a low- accommodation setting where sequences can be attributed confidently to glacio-eustasy. Results show that long-lived, low-diversity peat mires dominated by lycopsids were initiated during deglaciation events, but were mostly drowned by rising sea level at maximum interglacial conditions. Only upland coniferopsid forests survived flooding without significant disturbance. Mid- to late interglacial phases witnessed delta-plain progradation and establishment of high-diversity, mineral-substrate rain forests containing lycopsids, sphenopsids, pteridosperms, cordaites, and tree ferns. Renewed glaciation resulted in sea-level fall, paleovalley incision, and the onset of climatic aridity. Glacial vegetation was dominated by cordaites, pteridosperms, and tree ferns; hydrophilic lycopsids and sphenopsids survived in paleovalley refugia. Findings clearly demonstrate the dynamic nature of Pennsylvanian tropical ecosystems and are timely given current debates about the impact of Quaternary glacial-interglacial rhythms on the biogeography of tropical rain forest.read more
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Journal ArticleDOI
Glacial paradoxes during the late Paleozoic ice age: Evaluating the equilibrium line altitude as a control on glaciation
John L. Isbell,Lindsey C. Henry,Erik L. Gulbranson,Erik L. Gulbranson,Carlos O. Limarino,Carlos O. Limarino,Margaret L. Fraiser,Zelenda J. Koch,Patricia Lucia Ciccioli,Patricia Lucia Ciccioli,Ashley A. Dineen +10 more
TL;DR: In this article, three key intervals are evaluated using the concept of the equilibrium-line altitude (ELA) as a control on glaciation to provide insight into two intervals of paradoxical ice distribution during and following glaciation.
Journal ArticleDOI
Palaeoclimate across the Late Pennsylvanian–Early Permian tropical palaeolatitudes: A review of climate indicators, their distribution, and relation to palaeophysiographic climate factors
TL;DR: In this article, the authors review and evaluate both conceptual and numerical models that have been previously used to explain Late Pennsylvanian-Early Permian climate change in light of the detailed spatial and temporal proxy records from across near-equatorial Pangaea.
Journal ArticleDOI
Permo-Carboniferous climate: Early Pennsylvanian to Late Permian climate development of central Europe in a regional and global context
Marco Roscher,Joerg W. Schneider +1 more
TL;DR: A well-justified stratigraphical correlation of continental successions and new palaeogeographic reconstruction of Pangaea reveal new insights into the northern Pangaean climate development influenced by palaeoenvironments as discussed by the authors.
Journal ArticleDOI
Palaeozoic tropical rainforests and their effect on global climates: is the past the key to the present?
TL;DR: Wetland forests, known as coal forests, extended over large areas of the palaeotropics during the Late Carboniferous and the Permian Periods as discussed by the authors.
Journal ArticleDOI
Rainforest collapse triggered Carboniferous tetrapod diversification in Euramerica
TL;DR: It is demonstrated, for the first time, that Coal Forest fragmentation influenced profoundly the ecology and evolution of terrestrial fauna in tropical Euramerica, and illustrate the tight coupling that existed between vegetation, climate, and trophic webs.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
A Long Pollen Record from Lowland Amazonia: Forest and Cooling in Glacial Times
TL;DR: In this article, a continuous pollen history of more than 40,000 years was obtained from a lake in the lowland Amazon rain forest, and the data suggest that the western Amazon forest was not fragmented into refugia in glacial times and that the lowlands were not a source of dust.
Journal ArticleDOI
Mid-Holocene and glacial-maximum vegetation geography of the northern continents and Africa
Iain Colin Prentice,D. Jolly +1 more
TL;DR: The BIOME 6000 project is an international project to map vegetation globally at mid-Holocene and last glacial maximum (LGM, 18,000 14C yr BP) with a view to evaluating coupled climate-biosphere model results as mentioned in this paper.
Journal ArticleDOI
Amazonian and neotropical plant communities on glacial time-scales: The failure of the aridity and refuge hypotheses
TL;DR: In this article, the authors use pollen data to reconstruct the vegetation of the Amazon basin in oxygen isotope stages 3 and 2 of the last glaciation in order to measure how the plant populations responded to the global warming at the onset of the Holocene.
Book
The Evolution of Plants
TL;DR: A fresh, modern approach to a subject often treated very stuffily, the book incorporates many recent studies on the morphological evolution of plants, enlivens the subject with current research on ancient D.N.A. and other biomolecular markers, and places plant evolution in the context of climate change and mass extinction.
Journal ArticleDOI
A Synopsis of Climatic and Vegetational Change in Southeast Asia
TL;DR: Fossil pollen records demonstrate that Southeast Asian vegetation during the last glacial maximum (ca. 18 000 BP) differed substantially from that of today, with an increase in the extent of montane vegetation and savannah and a decline in rain forest as discussed by the authors.