The continental collision between India and Asia has been ongoing since early Eocene time, but the orogenic record is typically dominated by Miocene younger deformation metamorphism that largely overprinted earlier Eocene-Oligocene events. This hinders our understanding of how crustal thickening responds to initial when Himalayan mountains initially rise. advancement spatially precise petrochro...

The greenhouse-to-icehouse climate transition from the Eocene into Oligocene is well documented by sea surface temperature records southwest Pacific and Antarctic margin, which show evidence of pronounced long-term cooling. However, identification a driving mechanism depends on better understanding whether this cooling was also present in terrestrial settings. Here, we semi-continuous record sp...

Quantitative analysis of all well-preserved crania of Adapis magnus (n = 8) and Adapis parisiensis (n = 12) together with maxillary and mandibular dentitions preserving canines corroborates Stehlin's hypothesis that Adapis was sexually dimorphic. Males are from 13% to 16% larger than females in cranial length, corresponding to a weight dimorphism estimated at 44% to 56%, and have relatively bro...

The Hexapodidae was known to date from the Cenozoic of Veneto by Stevea cesarii Beschin, Busulini, De Angeli & Tessier, 1994, from the middle Eocene of Chiampo Valley (Vicenza), and Palaeopinnixa sp. from the upper Eocene of Possagno (Treviso). Recent discoveries from the Eocene of Vicenza area allowed to describe three new genera and four new species of hexapodids. Bellhexapus granulatus n. ge...

Literature reports upper Cretaceous to Middle Eocene flysch/wildflysch deposits from Mexico, Guatemala, Jamaica, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Barbados, Granada, Trinidad, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. Early papers recording their widespread distribution and noting their tectonic implications are often overlooked by popular palaeogeographic and plate tectonic reconstructions of the Caribbean area...

The megamouth shark (Lamniformes: Megachasmidae) has sporadic occurrences both in the present-day oceans and in the fossil record. In this paper, we describe a new megachasmid, Megachasma alisonae sp. nov., on the basis of a morphologically distinct tooth collected from the Pyt Member of the late Eocene Søvind Marl Formation at Moesgård Strand in Denmark, that represents the geologically oldest...

India's northward flight and collision with Asia was a major driver of global tectonics in the Cenozoic and, we argue, of atmospheric CO(2) concentration (pCO(2)) and thus global climate. Subduction of Tethyan oceanic crust with a carpet of carbonate-rich pelagic sediments deposited during transit beneath the high-productivity equatorial belt resulted in a component flux of CO(2) delivery to th...

The Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) was a significant global warming event in the Earth's history (approx. 55 Ma). The cause for this warming event has been linked to increases in greenhouse gases, specifically carbon dioxide and methane. This rapid warming took place in the presence of the existing Early Eocene warm climate. Given that projected business-as-usual levels of atmospheric...