The fossil history of plant life in Antarctica is central to our understanding of the evolution of vegetation through geological time and also plays a key role in reconstructing past configurations of the continents and associated climatic conditions. This book provides the only detailed overview of the development of Antarctic vegetation from the Devonian period to the present day, presenting Earth scientists with valuable insights into the break up of the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana. Details of specific floras and ecosystems are provided within the context of changing geological, geographical and environmental conditions, alongside comparisons with contemporaneous and modern ecosystems. The authors demonstrate how palaeobotany contributes to our understanding of the paleoenvironmental changes in the southern hemisphere during this period of Earth history. The book is a complete and up-to-date reference for researchers and students in Antarctic paleobotany and terrestrial paleoecology.
This volume presents a suite of detailed stratigraphic and sedimentologic investigations of the Eocene Green River Formation of Wyoming, Colorado and Utah, one of the world’s foremost terrestrial archives of lacustrine and alluvial deposition during the warmest portion of the early Cenozoic. Its twelve chapters encompass the rich and varied record of lacustrine stratigraphy, sedimentology, geochronology, geochemistry and paleontology. Chapters 2-9 provide detailed member-scale synthesis of Green River Formation strata within the Greater Green River, Fossil, Piceance Creek and Uinta Basins, while its final two chapters address its enigmatic evaporite deposits and ichnofossils at broad, interbasinal scale.
Explores soil as a nexus for water, chemicals, and biologically coupled nutrient cycling Soil is a narrow but critically important zone on Earth's surface. It is the interface for water and carbon recycling from above and part of the cycling of sediment and rock from below. Hydrogeology, Chemical Weathering, and Soil Formation places chemical weathering and soil formation in its geological, climatological, biological and hydrological perspective. Volume highlights include: The evolution of soils over 3.25 billion years Basic processes contributing to soil formation How chemical weathering and soil formation relate to water and energy fluxes The role of pedogenesis in geomorphology Relationships between climate soils and biota Soils, aeolian deposits, and crusts as geologic dating tools Impacts of land-use change on soils The American Geophysical Union promotes discovery in Earth and space science for the benefit of humanity. Its publications disseminate scientific knowledge and provide resources for researchers, students, and professionals. Find out more about this book from this Q&A with the Editors
With its thickness of more than 15 km of strata, covering some 200,000 km2, the Belt basin displays one of the planet's largest, best-exposed, most accessible, and best-preserved sequences of Mesoproterozoic sedimentary and igneous rocks. This volume focuses on research into this world-class province; kindles ideas about this critical era of Earth evolution; and covers aspects of the basin from its paleontology, mineralogy, sedimentology, and stratigraphy to its magmatism, ore deposits, geophysics, and structural geology.
Siliciclastic shallow-marine deposits record the interface between land and sea, and its response to a variety of forcing mechanisms: physical process regime, the internal dynamics of coastal and shelfal depositional systems, relative sea level, sediment flux, tectonic setting, and climate. These deposits have long been the subject of conceptual stratigraphic models that seek to explain the interplay between these various forcing mechanisms, and their preservation in the stratigraphic record. This volume arose from an SEPM research conference on shoreline-shelf stratigraphy that was held in Grand Junction, Colorado, on August 24-28, 2004. The aim of the resulting volume is to highlight the development over the last 15 years of the stratigraphic concepts and models that are used to interpret siliciclastic marginal-marine, shallow-marine, and shelf deposits.
This volume focuses on the reconstruction of past ecosystems and provides a comprehensive review of current techniques and their application in exemplar studies. The 18 chapters address a wide variety of topics that span vertebrate paleobiology and paleoecology (body mass, postcranial functional morphology, evolutionary dental morphology, microwear and mesowear, ecomorphology, mammal community structure analysis), contextual paleoenvironmental studies (paleosols and sedimentology, ichnofossils, pollen, phytoliths, plant macrofossils), and special techniques (bone microstructure, biomineral isotopes, inorganic isotopes, 3-D morphometrics, and ecometric modeling). A final chapter discusses how to integrate results of these studies with taphonomic data in order to more accurately characterize an ancient ecosystem. Current investigators, advanced undergraduates, and graduate students interested in the field of paleoecology will find this book immensely useful. The length and structure of the volume also makes it suitable for teaching a college-level course on reconstructing Cenozoic ecosystems.
This Special Report comprehensively describes the stratigraphy and correlation of the Tertiary (Paleogene–Neogene) rocks of NW Europe and the adjacent Atlantic Ocean and is the summation of fifty years of research on Tertiary sediments by Chris King. His book is essential reading for all geologists who deal with Tertiary rocks across NW Europe, including those in the petroleum industry and geotechnical services as well as academic stratigraphers and palaeontologists. Introductory sections on chronostratigraphy, biostratigraphy and other methods of dating and correlation are followed by a regional summary of Tertiary sedimentary basins and their framework and an introduction to Tertiary igneous rocks. The third and largest segment comprises the regional stratigraphic summaries. Regions covered are the North Sea Basin, onshore areas of southern England and the eastern English Channel area, the North Atlantic margins (including non-marine basins in the Irish Sea and elsewhere) and the Paleogene igneous rocks of Scotland.
The TEX86 paleothermometer is based upon the distribution of archaeal membrane lipids ('GDGTs') in marine sediments. GDGTs are ubiquitous, abundant and relatively resistant to degradation; as such, the TEX86 paleothermometer has been used to reconstruct sea surface temperature (SST) during the Cenozoic and early Mesozoic. We review the principles of the TEX86 proxy and developments made over the last two decades. We also discuss its application as a paleotemperature proxy and explore existing challenges and limitations.