Departmental Papers (EES)
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of this Version
May 2001
Abstract
Late Carboniferous and Early Permian strata record the transition from a cold interval in Earth history, characterized by the repeated periods of glaciation and deglaciation of the southern pole, to a warm-climate interval. Consequently, this time period is the best available analogue to the Recent in which to study patterns of vegetational response, both to glacial-interglacial oscillation and to the appearance of warm climate. Carboniferous wetland ecosystems were dominated by spore-producing plants and early gymnospermous seed plants. Global climate changes, largely drying,forced vegetational changes, resulting in a change to a seed plant–dominated world, beginning first at high latitudes during the Carboniferous, reaching the tropics near the Permo-Carboniferous boundary. For most of this time plant assemblages were very conservative in their composition. Change in the dominant vegetation was generally a rapid process, which suggests that environmental thresholds were crossed, and involved little mixing of elements from the wet and dry floras.
Keywords
ecosystem stability, glaciation, biome, coal, extinction
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Date Posted: 27 July 2005
This document has been peer reviewed.
Comments
Copyright 2001 Annual Reviews. Reprinted from Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Volume 29, May 2001, pages 461-487.
Publisher URL: http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev.earth.29.1.461
The US Government has the right to retain a nonexclusive, royalty-free licence in and to any copyright covering this paper.