Throughout Earth's history, CO2 is thought to have exerted a fundamental control on environmental change. Here we review and revise CO2 reconstructions from boron isotopes in carbonates and carbon isotopes in organic matter over the Cenozoic—the past 66 million years. We find close coupling between CO2 and climate throughout the Cenozoic, with peak...
Isolated equid phalanges are relatively common finds in the Barstow Formation (Miocene, 19 to 13 million years ago, southern California), but anecdotal observations suggested that not all positions (proximal, middle, and distal/ungual) of the primary digit (digit III) are recovered with equal frequency. Our sample includes primarily surface-collect...
Published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
The evolutionary history of organisms with poor dispersal abilities usually parallels geological events. Collisions of the Indian and Arabian plates with Eurasia greatly changed Asian topography and affected regional and global climates as well as biotic evolution. However, the geological evolution of Asia related to these two collisions remains de...
The Elateridae (click-beetles) are the largest family in Elateroidea; however, their relationships, systematics and classification remain unclear. Our understanding of the origin, evolution, palaeodiversity and palaeobiogeography of Elateridae, as well as reconstruction of a reliable time-calibrated phylogeny for the group, are hampered by the lack...
Paleogeographic maps are essential tools for understanding Earth system dynamics. They provide boundary conditions for climate and geodynamic modelling, for analysing surface processes and biotic interactions. However, the temporal and spatial distribution of key features such as seaways and mountain belts that govern climate changes and biotic int...
Published in Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society
Tropical Africa is home to an astonishing biodiversity occurring in a variety of ecosystems. Past climatic change and geological events have impacted the evolution and diversification of this biodiversity. During the last two decades, around 90 dated molecular phylogenies of different clades across animals and plants have been published leading to ...
Published in Lithology and Mineral Resources
AbstractsThe results of studying the material composition of sandy rocks from Cenozoic deposits in the West Sakhalin Terrane are considered. It has been established that sandstones in the terrane correspond to graywackes and petrogenic (“first cycle”) rocks. They are characterized by a low maturity degree of the detrital material formed mainly due ...
Published in PeerJ
Dramatic early Cenozoic climatic shifts resulted in faunal reorganization on a global scale. Among vertebrates, multiple groups of mammals (e.g., adapiform and omomyiform primates, mesonychids, taeniodonts, dichobunid artiodactyls) are well known from the Western Interior of North America in the warm, greenhouse conditions of the early Eocene, but ...
In this work, we present the results of a petrographic and geochemical study that involves seven Cenozoic plutons located in a NS trending belt in western Patagonia, south of the present Chile Triple-Junction and to the east of the present magmatic arc. Four plutons were studied in the northern end, and three in the southern part of the belt. The p...
To address the question of the initiation and mechanisms involved in the process of subduction zone formation, we explored most of the available evidence for the subduction initiation (SI) during the Cenozoic. For this, we targeted a total of 70 candidate sites for subduction initiation cumulating ~70,000 km of trench, two thirds of which are still...
