7 research outputs found
Tertiary Climate Changes in the Far East Based on Palaeofloristic and Palaeomagnetic Data
Early Tertiary Vegetation of Arctic Canada and Its Relevance to Paleoclimatic Interpretation
Species relationships and divergence times in beeches: new insights from the inclusion of 53 young and old fossils in a birthâdeath clock model
Messinian vegetation and climate of the intermontane FlorinaâPtolemaisâServia Basin, NW Greece inferred from palaeobotanical data: how well do plant fossils reflect past environments?
The late Miocene is marked by pronounced environmentalchanges and the appearance of strong temperature andprecipitation seasonality. Although environmental heterogeneityis to be expected during this time, it is challenging to reconstructpalaeoenvironments using plant fossils. We investigated leavesand dispersed spores/pollen from 6.4 to 6 Ma strata inthe intermontane FlorinaâPtolemaisâServia Basin (FPS) ofnorthwestern Greece. To assess how well plant fossils reflectthe actual vegetation of the FPS, we assigned fossil taxa tobiomes providing a measure for environmental heterogeneity.Additionally, the palynological assemblage was compared withpollen spectra from modern lake sediments to assess biases inspore/pollen representation in the pollen record. We found aclose match of the Vegora assemblage with modern FagusâAbiesforests of Turkey. Using taxonomic affinities of leaf fossils, wefurther established close similarities of the Vegora assemblage with modern laurophyllous oak forests of Afghanistan. Finally, using information from sedimentaryenvironment and taphonomy, we distinguished local and distantly growing vegetation types.We thensubjected the plant assemblage of Vegora to different methods of climate reconstruction and discussedtheir potentials and limitations. Leaf and spore/pollen records allow accurate reconstructions ofpalaeoenvironments in the FPS, whereas extra-regional vegetation from coastal lowlands isprobably not captured