ibclogo XVI International Botanical Congess


Abstract Number: 4438
Session = 12.1.1


PALEOBOTANY OF THE CARIBBEAN BASIN


Graham, Alan, Department of Biological Sciences, Kent State University, Kent, OH 44242


Four aspects of paleoenvironments are frequently of interest to biologists-- physical connections between continents, emergent history of land fragments, habitat diversity (climate and physiography), and migratory history of potential host plants. Connections between N. and S. America were established 3.5 Ma., highlands appeared 2.5 Ma., western Cuba has been in place since the Cretaceous, the eastern part and Hispaniola arrived in the middle Eocene, eastern Cuba separated from Hispaniola in the middle Miocene, Jamaica was submerged from the middle Eocene to the late Miocene, northern temperate elements arrived late in northern Latin America with a significant decline in global temperatures (post-middle Miocene)B Pinus early Miocene, Quercus late Miocene, and even later in northern South America -- Salix, Myrica late Pliocene, Alnus 1 Ma, Quercus 330 ka.


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