Mesozoic-Cenozoic climatic history and causes of the glaciation

1986 ◽  
pp. 33-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. A. Frakes
Keyword(s):  
Climatic History

Paleontology and stratigraphy of Middle Eocene rock units in the southern Green River and Uinta Basins, Wyoming and Utah

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 1-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Murphey ◽  
K.E. Townsend ◽  
Anthony Friscia ◽  
James Westgate ◽  
Emmett Evanoff ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Current Knowledge ◽  
Middle Eocene ◽  
Green River Basin ◽  
Green River ◽  
Scientific Exploration ◽  
History Of ◽  
Climatic History ◽  
Field Excursion ◽  
Land Mammal ◽  
Bridger Formation

The Bridger Formation is restricted to the Green River Basin in southwest Wyoming, and the Uinta and Duchesne River Formations are located in the Uinta Basin in Utah. These three rock units and their diverse fossil assemblages are of great scientific importance and historic interest to vertebrate paleontologists. Notably, they are also the stratotypes from oldest to youngest for the three middle Eocene North American Land Mammal Ages—the Bridgerian, Uintan, and Duchesnean. The fossils and sediments of these formations provide a critically important record of biotic, environmental, and climatic history spanning approximately 10 million years (49 to 39 Ma). This article provides a detailed field excursion through portions of the Green River and Uinta Basins that focuses on locations of geologic, paleontologic, and historical interest. In support of the field excursion, we also provide a review of current knowledge of these formations with emphasis on lithostratigraphy, biochronology, depositional, and paleoenvironmental history, and the history of scientific exploration.

Late Pleistocene–Holocene environmental and climatic history of a freshwater paramo ecosystem in the northern Andes

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (8) ◽  
pp. 1046-1056
Author(s):  
Luisa Patiño ◽  
Maria Isabel Velez ◽  
Marion Weber ◽  
César A. Velásquez‐r ◽  
Santiago David ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Late Pleistocene ◽  
Northern Andes ◽  
History Of ◽  
Climatic History

scholarly journals The role of climatic and geological events in generating diversity in Ethiopian grass frogs (genus Ptychadena )

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (8) ◽  
pp. 170021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan L. Smith ◽  
Brice P. Noonan ◽  
Timothy J. Colston
Keyword(s):  
Habitat Complexity ◽  
Molecular Data ◽  
Cryptic Diversity ◽  
Horn Of Africa ◽  
Climatic Fluctuations ◽  
Divergence Dating ◽  
Evolutionary Radiation ◽  
Novel Taxa ◽  
Climatic History

Ethiopia is a world biodiversity hotspot and harbours levels of biotic endemism unmatched in the Horn of Africa, largely due to topographic—and thus habitat—complexity, which results from a very active geological and climatic history. Among Ethiopian vertebrate fauna, amphibians harbour the highest levels of endemism, making amphibians a compelling system for the exploration of the impacts of Ethiopia's complex abiotic history on biotic diversification. Grass frogs of the genus Ptychadena are notably diverse in Ethiopia, where they have undergone an evolutionary radiation. We used molecular data and expanded taxon sampling to test for cryptic diversity and to explore diversification patterns in both the highland radiation and two widespread lowland Ptychadena . Species delimitation results support the presence of nine highland species and four lowland species in our dataset, and divergence dating suggests that both geologic events and climatic fluctuations played a complex and confounded role in the diversification of Ptychadena in Ethiopia. We rectify the taxonomy of the endemic P. neumanni species complex, elevating one formally synonymized name and describing three novel taxa. Finally, we describe two novel lowland Ptychadena species that occur in Ethiopia and may be more broadly distributed.

scholarly journals Atmospheric speciation of rocky planets from magma ocean outgassing

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Lichtenberg ◽  
Dan J. Bower ◽  
Mark Hammond ◽  
Ryan Boukrouche ◽  
Shang-Min Tsai ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Coupled Model ◽  
Initial Distribution ◽  
Occurrence Rate ◽  
Magma Ocean ◽  
Mantle Dynamics ◽  
Mantle Geochemistry ◽  
Prebiotic Chemical ◽  
History Of ◽  
Climatic History ◽  
Rocky Planets

<p>The earliest atmospheres of rocky planets originate from extensive volatile release during one or more magma ocean epochs that occur during primary and late-stage assembly of the planet (1). These epochs represent the most extreme cycling of volatiles between the interior and atmosphere in the history of a planet, and establish the initial distribution of the major volatile elements (C, H, N, O, S) between different chemical reservoirs that subsequently evolve via geological cycles. Crucially, the erosion or recycling of primary atmospheres bear upon the nature of the long-lived secondary atmospheres that will be probed with current and future observing facilities (2). Furthermore, the chemical speciation of the atmosphere arising from magma ocean processes can potentially be probed with present-day observations of tidally-locked rocky super-Earths (3). The speciation in turn strongly influences the climatic history of rocky planets, for instance the occurrence rate of planets that are locked in long-term runaway greenhouse states (4). We will present an integrated framework to model the build-up of the earliest atmospheres from magma ocean outgassing using a coupled model of mantle dynamics and atmospheric evolution. We consider the diversity of atmospheres that can arise for a range of initial planetary bulk compositions, and show how even small variations in volatile abundances can result in dramatically different atmospheric compositions and affect earliest mantle geochemistry and atmospheric speciation relevant for surficial prebiotic chemical environments (5). Only through the lense of coupled evolutionary models of terrestrial interiors and atmospheres can we begin to deconvolve the imprint of formation from that of evolution, with consequences for how we interpret the diversity revealed by astrophysical observables, and their relation to the earliest planetary conditions of our home world.</p> <div class=""><em>References</em></div> <ol> <li>Bower, D. J., Kitzmann, D., Wolf, A. S., et al. (2019). Astron. Astrophys. 631, A103.</li> <li>Bonati, I., Lichtenberg, T., Bower, D. J., et al. (2019). Astron. Astrophys. 621, A125.</li> <li>Kreidberg, L., Koll, D. D., Morley, C., et al. (2019). Nature 573, 87-90.</li> <li>Hamano, K., Abe, Y., Genda, H. (2013). Nature 497, 607-610.</li> <li>Sasselov, D. D., Grotzinger, J. P., Sutherland, J. D. (2020). Sci. Adv. 6, eaax3419.</li> </ol>

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