Publication:
A greenhouse interval between icehouse times: Climate change, long-distance plant dispersal, and plate motion in the Mississippian (late Visean-earliest Serpukhovian) of Gondwana
A greenhouse interval between icehouse times: Climate change, long-distance plant dispersal, and plate motion in the Mississippian (late Visean-earliest Serpukhovian) of Gondwana
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Date
2014
Authors
Pfefferkorn H.W.
Alleman V.
Iannuzzi R.
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Publisher
Elsevier
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Abstract
The late Paleozoic ice age (LPIA) is the closest example that can be compared with current climate conditions. Near the beginning of the LPIA fossil plants of Mississippian (late Visean to earliest Serpukhovian) age indicate a widespread frost-free climate in a wide belt on Gondwana indicating an interval of greenhouse conditions between the earlier Visean and later Serpukhovian icehouse times. This warm-temperate floral belt has been named the Paraca floral belt after the locality on the Peruvian coast where it was first recognized.
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This work was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (EAR-8916826) and the Research Foundation of the University of Pennsylvania to H.W.P., grants from the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia (CONCYTEC) and the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung to V.A., and grants from the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq-PQ305687/2010-7) to R.I. We acknowledge the interest and support by former and current Directors of the Paracas Reserva for our paleontological studies; permissions to work in the Reserva Nacional de Paracas by the Instituto Nacional de Recursos Naturales, INRENA; and former students of the Universidad Ricardo Palma for their assistance in the field. Grace Maloney, Dan Ke, and Joanna Karaman prepared the figures.
Keywords
Visean,
Greenhouse interval,
lPaleobotany,
Gondwana,
Long-distance dispersal