IMIS

Publications | Institutes | Persons | Datasets | Projects | Maps
[ report an error in this record ]basket (1): add | show Print this page

one publication added to basket [322676]
Temperate rainforests near the South Pole during peak Cretaceous warmth
Klages, Johann P.; the Science Team of Expedition PS104; Salzmann, Ulrich; Bickert, Torsten; Hillenbrand, Claus-Dieter; Gohl, Karsten; Kuhn, Gerhard; Bohaty, Steven M.; Titschack, Jürgen; Müller, Juliane; Frederichs, Thomas; Bauersachs, Thorsten; Ehrmann, Werner; van de Flierdt, Tina; Pereira, Patric Simões; Larter, Robert D.; Lohmann, Gerrit; Niezgodzki, Igor; Uenzelmann-Neben, Gabriele; Zundel, Maximilian; Spiegel, Cornelia; Mark, Chris; Chew, David; Francis, Jane E.; Nehrke, Gernot; Schwarz, Florian; Smith, James A.; Freudenthal, Tim; Esper, Oliver; Pälike, Heiko; Ronge, Thomas A.; Dziadek, Ricarda (2020). Temperate rainforests near the South Pole during peak Cretaceous warmth. Nature (Lond.) 580(7801): 81-86. https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2148-5
In: Nature: International Weekly Journal of Science. Nature Publishing Group: London. ISSN 0028-0836; e-ISSN 1476-4687, more
Peer reviewed article  

Available in

Abstract
    The mid-Cretaceous period was one of the warmest intervals of the past 140 million years driven by atmospheric carbon dioxide levels of around 1,000 parts per million by volume6. In the near absence of proximal geological records from south of the Antarctic Circle, it is disputed whether polar ice could exist under such environmental conditions. Here we use a sedimentary sequence recovered from the West Antarctic shelf—the southernmost Cretaceous record reported so far—and show that a temperate lowland rainforest environment existed at a palaeolatitude of about 82° S during the Turonian–Santonian age (92 to 83 million years ago). This record contains an intact 3-metre-long network of in situ fossil roots embedded in a mudstone matrix containing diverse pollen and spores. A climate model simulation shows that the reconstructed temperate climate at this high latitude requires a combination of both atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations of 1,120–1,680 parts per million by volume and a vegetated land surface without major Antarctic glaciation, highlighting the important cooling effect exerted by ice albedo under high levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

All data in the Integrated Marine Information System (IMIS) is subject to the VLIZ privacy policy Top