Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 5.3
Fruits of
Guarea
(Meliaceae). (Left) Fossil originally described as
Ficus ceratops
from the Late Cretaceous Lance and Hell Creek formations of Wyoming. (Right) Modern
fruits of
Guarea chicon
. From Graham 1962. Used with permission from the Society for
Sedimentary Geology (SEPM), Tulsa, OK.
brackish-water mangroves (without the modern
Rhizophora
), and beach/
strand/dune vegetation along the sandy coasts, but conditions in this en-
vironment are not suitable for preservation and the community is poorly
known. Reconstructing the history of New World ecosystems will involve
tracking what happened to these eight communities and discovering rea-
sons for the changes.
As things started to heat up toward the LPTM/EECL, with more water
evaporating from the ocean surface, the continents became densely veg-
etated and conditions were even more tropical. Eocene vegetation from a
global perspective is described by Utescher and Mosbrugger (2007). In the
New World, the late Paleocene / early Eocene Thyra Ø fl ora is located on the
north coast of Greenland at latitude 82°N (Boyd 1990, 1992). It consists
of about thirty species of plants of which twenty-three are angiosperms.
Of particular interest is the huge monocot leaf
Musophyllum
(
Musopsis
)
groenlandicum
, 1.5 m long and 30-40 cm wide. It belongs to the Musaceae
(banana) complex of families, and it is a clear indication of the near tropi-
cal conditions existing at least locally north of the Arctic Circle. Also pres-
