The GAARlandia hypothesis has produced vigorous debate among biologists regarding whether now-submerged landforms that existed in the Caribbean region during late Paleogene might have acted as a barrier for marine organisms and bridge terrestrial biotas migrating from South America into Greater Antilles. This concept derived hypothesized emergence history of Aves Ridge. In quarter century since...

[1] Proxy data constraining land and ocean surface paleotemperatures indicate that the Middle Miocene Climate Optimum (MMCO), a global warming event at 15 Ma, had a global annual mean surface temperature of 18.4 C, about 3 C higher than present and equivalent to the warming predicted for the next century. We apply the latest National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Community Atmosphere M...

We present a new reconstruction of the mid-Cretaceous (100 Ma) paleogeography of the United States and Canadian Cordillera, based on (a) restoring displacements within the major Late Cretaceous to Cenozoic contractional and extensional belts, and (b) restoring displacements along the major Late Cretaceous to Cenozoic dextral strike-slip faults of the northern Cordillera. The reconstruction move...

Cycas is the most widespread and diverse genus among the ancient cycads, but the extant species could be the product of late Miocene rapid radiations. Taxonomic treatments to date for this genus are quite controversial, which makes it difficult to elucidate its evolutionary history. We cloned 161 genomic ITS sequences from 31 species representing all sections of Cycas. The divergent ITS paralog...

Well-preserved Quaternary sedimentary sequences in the central coast of Ecuador have provided sufficient relevant information for paleogeographic reconstruction and climatic evolution, from stratigraphic, geochemical, biological analysis. The Jaramijo canton site is one most remarkable results stratigraphic correlation lithological units with delineation a paleo sea-cliff age 14C 43,245 ± 460 B...

The Ross orogen of Antarctica is one of Earth’s great Phanerozoic mountain belts. It is thought from igneous geochemistry, deformation patterns, and sedimentation history to be the result of late Neoproterozoic and early Paleozoic plate-margin convergence between paleo-Pacifi c oceanic lithosphere and continental lithosphere represented by the composite East Antarctic shield. Convergence along ...

Our updated review of sites bearing hominin remains and/or tools from Europe, including new findings from the Balkans, still indicates that the only compelling evidence of main hominin presence in these regions was only since ~0.9 million years ago (Ma), bracketed by the end of the Jaramillo geomagnetic polarity subchron (0.99 Ma) and the Brunhes-Matuyama polarity chron boundary (0.78 Ma). This...

BACKGROUND Due to its complex, dynamic and well-known paleogeography, the Mediterranean region provides an ideal framework to study the colonization history of plant lineages. The genus Linaria has its diversity centre in the Mediterranean region, both in Europe and Africa. The last land connection between both continental plates occurred during the Messinian Salinity Crisis, in the late Miocen...