Temperate rain forests at 77°S palaeolatitude during the Late Cretaceous
The ‘greenhouse climate’ of the Late Cretaceous epoch was one of the Earth’s warmest periods of the past 140 Ma, particularly at high latitudes. However, records allowing insights into terrestrial environmental conditions south of the Antarctic circle during that time are extremely rare. Hence, it r...
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ftawi:oai:epic.awi.de:50264 2024-09-15T17:39:09+00:00 Temperate rain forests at 77°S palaeolatitude during the Late Cretaceous Klages, Johann Philipp Salzmann, Ulrich Bickert, Thorsten Hillenbrand, Claus-Dieter Gohl, Karsten Kuhn, Gerhard 2019 https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/50264/ https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.ae0bfaeb-1240-4539-b6cb-688ea12708a1 unknown Klages, J. P. orcid:0000-0003-0968-1183 , Salzmann, U. , Bickert, T. , Hillenbrand, C. D. , Gohl, K. orcid:0000-0002-9558-2116 and Kuhn, G. orcid:0000-0001-6069-7485 (2019) Temperate rain forests at 77°S palaeolatitude during the Late Cretaceous , GeoMünster 2019, Münster, Germany, 22 September 2019 - 25 September 2019 . hdl:10013/epic.ae0bfaeb-1240-4539-b6cb-688ea12708a1 EPIC3GeoMünster 2019, Münster, Germany, 2019-09-22-2019-09-25 Conference notRev 2019 ftawi 2024-06-24T04:22:11Z The ‘greenhouse climate’ of the Late Cretaceous epoch was one of the Earth’s warmest periods of the past 140 Ma, particularly at high latitudes. However, records allowing insights into terrestrial environmental conditions south of the Antarctic circle during that time are extremely rare. Hence, it remains highly elusive how the sensitive South Polar environment may have been impacted by such an extreme climate. Here we report a unique sedimentary sequence that was recovered with the MeBo-70 sea floor drill rig from the central Amundsen Sea Embayment shelf, West Antarctica. The record contains ~26 m of quartzitic sandstone underlain by a lithified swamp deposit that consists of a ~2 m-long complex and intact network of in-situ fossil plant roots embedded in a mudstone matrix. The lower ~1.5 m of this mudstone contain a highly diverse pollen and spore assemblage, documenting a temperate coastal lowland rain forest environment with mean annual temperatures of 11-15°C at a palaeolatitude of 77°S. Hence, the drill record provides the hitherto southernmost evidence of Cretaceous terrestrial environmental conditions and reveals a ‘greenhouse climate’ that was capable of maintaining a temperate environment much further south than previously known. The predictive capabilities of model simulations for high-latitude climate and environment characteristics for this critical period of Earth’s climatic history can therefore now be evaluated more reliably. Conference Object Amundsen Sea Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica West Antarctica Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar- and Marine Research (AWI): ePIC (electronic Publication Information Center) |
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Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar- and Marine Research (AWI): ePIC (electronic Publication Information Center) |
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ftawi |
language |
unknown |
description |
The ‘greenhouse climate’ of the Late Cretaceous epoch was one of the Earth’s warmest periods of the past 140 Ma, particularly at high latitudes. However, records allowing insights into terrestrial environmental conditions south of the Antarctic circle during that time are extremely rare. Hence, it remains highly elusive how the sensitive South Polar environment may have been impacted by such an extreme climate. Here we report a unique sedimentary sequence that was recovered with the MeBo-70 sea floor drill rig from the central Amundsen Sea Embayment shelf, West Antarctica. The record contains ~26 m of quartzitic sandstone underlain by a lithified swamp deposit that consists of a ~2 m-long complex and intact network of in-situ fossil plant roots embedded in a mudstone matrix. The lower ~1.5 m of this mudstone contain a highly diverse pollen and spore assemblage, documenting a temperate coastal lowland rain forest environment with mean annual temperatures of 11-15°C at a palaeolatitude of 77°S. Hence, the drill record provides the hitherto southernmost evidence of Cretaceous terrestrial environmental conditions and reveals a ‘greenhouse climate’ that was capable of maintaining a temperate environment much further south than previously known. The predictive capabilities of model simulations for high-latitude climate and environment characteristics for this critical period of Earth’s climatic history can therefore now be evaluated more reliably. |
format |
Conference Object |
author |
Klages, Johann Philipp Salzmann, Ulrich Bickert, Thorsten Hillenbrand, Claus-Dieter Gohl, Karsten Kuhn, Gerhard |
spellingShingle |
Klages, Johann Philipp Salzmann, Ulrich Bickert, Thorsten Hillenbrand, Claus-Dieter Gohl, Karsten Kuhn, Gerhard Temperate rain forests at 77°S palaeolatitude during the Late Cretaceous |
author_facet |
Klages, Johann Philipp Salzmann, Ulrich Bickert, Thorsten Hillenbrand, Claus-Dieter Gohl, Karsten Kuhn, Gerhard |
author_sort |
Klages, Johann Philipp |
title |
Temperate rain forests at 77°S palaeolatitude during the Late Cretaceous |
title_short |
Temperate rain forests at 77°S palaeolatitude during the Late Cretaceous |
title_full |
Temperate rain forests at 77°S palaeolatitude during the Late Cretaceous |
title_fullStr |
Temperate rain forests at 77°S palaeolatitude during the Late Cretaceous |
title_full_unstemmed |
Temperate rain forests at 77°S palaeolatitude during the Late Cretaceous |
title_sort |
temperate rain forests at 77°s palaeolatitude during the late cretaceous |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/50264/ https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.ae0bfaeb-1240-4539-b6cb-688ea12708a1 |
genre |
Amundsen Sea Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica West Antarctica |
genre_facet |
Amundsen Sea Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica West Antarctica |
op_source |
EPIC3GeoMünster 2019, Münster, Germany, 2019-09-22-2019-09-25 |
op_relation |
Klages, J. P. orcid:0000-0003-0968-1183 , Salzmann, U. , Bickert, T. , Hillenbrand, C. D. , Gohl, K. orcid:0000-0002-9558-2116 and Kuhn, G. orcid:0000-0001-6069-7485 (2019) Temperate rain forests at 77°S palaeolatitude during the Late Cretaceous , GeoMünster 2019, Münster, Germany, 22 September 2019 - 25 September 2019 . hdl:10013/epic.ae0bfaeb-1240-4539-b6cb-688ea12708a1 |
_version_ |
1810477809939775488 |