Context

• Main Author: Graham, Alan
• Format: Book Part
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford University Press 1999
• Subjects: Birkenmajer; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780195113426.003.0006

The interaction between vegetation and the environment over time is one of the most complex of the Earth’s integrated systems. In addition to the direct methodologies of paleopalynology and paleobotany, there are other techniques that provide independent sources of information for interpreting this interaction. These include paleotemperature analysis, sea-level changes, and faunal history. The first two are also forcing mechanisms as discussed in Chapter 2, but for this survey the summary curves can also serve as convenient context information. Each is a vast subject with an extensive literature, and all are presently generating considerable discussion. For paleotemperature analysis, unsettled issues include the extent of temperature change in equatorial waters during the Early and Middle Tertiary, which would affect the poleward transport of heat by conveyer-belt mechanisms. Estimates range from surface waters as warm or warmer than the present to considerably cooler. For the Neogene, CLIMAP estimates based on the ecology of coccolithophores, diatoms, radiolarians, and especially foraminifera are that temperatures in the tropics did not cool significantly; modeling results, terrestrial paleontological evidence, and new Barbados coral data suggest they cooled by ~5°C. There is uncertainty as to when glaciations began on Antarctica; recent estimates range from the Early Eocene to late Middle Eocene to Middle Oligocene (45-35 Ma; Birkenmajer, 1990; Leg 119 Shipboard Scientific Party, 1988). This affects interpretation of 18O values during the Paleogene because they could reflect temperature alone or could be due to ocean water temperature and ice volume changes. Another challenge is to unravel the extent to which benthic temperature records track insolation-induced changes in water temperature versus new thresholds in ocean bottom-water circulation. Discussions of sea-level fluctuation are presently focused on their causes during the preglacial Early Cenozoic. In faunal history the timing of the North American ...