MACNBR   00242
MUSEO ARGENTINO DE CIENCIAS NATURALES "BERNARDINO RIVADAVIA"
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
Does the Río Turbio Formation preserve evidence of an extinct biome?
Autor/es:
BARREDA, V.D.; PALAZZESI, L; FERNÁNDEZ, D.; JARAMILLO, C.
Lugar:
Salvador
Reunión:
Congreso; XIV International Palynological Congress - X International Organisation of Palaeobotany Conference; 2016
Resumen:
The Rio Turbio Formation (RTF) was accumulated in the Austral Basin, Patagonia, during the early Middle Eocene to the Late Eocene. The RTF preserved a unique paleoflora known as the ?Mixed Paleoflora (MP)?, a flora that by the middle Eocene occupied most of temperate South America. The MP lived under a unique combination of climatic parameters including a temperate region with a relatively warm winter, high annual precipitation, little seasonal variation, representing a climate that has not a modern analogue. The MP had a mixture of angiosperms and gymnosperms that combined Neotropical elements, cold-temperate elements from Gondwana?sub-Antarctic in origin?and in situ Chaco forests. Is the MP a biome with no modern analog? In order to answer this question, we studied 22 palynological samples from nine sections of the Eocene in Patagonia. We compared the palynological assemblages with most of the extant biomes temperate South America. We used the pollen data from the Latin American Pollen Database and perform a similarity analysis using the Chao?s similarity index. Preliminary results show that the MP of the upper member of the RTF have a greater similarity to the extant Valdivian Forest. In contrast, The MP of the lower member of the RTF is not similar to any extant biome. We aim to expand the analysis to include additional Gondwanan Eocene floras of Brazil, Chile, Bolivia, Australia and New Zealand.