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A new fossil assemblage shows that large angiosperm trees grew in North America by the Turonian (Late Cretaceous)

The diversification of flowering plants and marked turnover in vertebrate faunas during the mid-Cretaceous transformed terrestrial communities, but the transition is obscured by reduced terrestrial deposition attributable to high sea levels. We report a new fossil assemblage from multiple localities...

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Autores principales: Jud, Nathan A., D’Emic, Michael D., Williams, Scott A., Mathews, Josh C., Tremaine, Katie M., Bhattacharya, Janok
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: American Association for the Advancement of Science 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6157959/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30263954
http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aar8568
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author Jud, Nathan A.
D’Emic, Michael D.
Williams, Scott A.
Mathews, Josh C.
Tremaine, Katie M.
Bhattacharya, Janok
author_facet Jud, Nathan A.
D’Emic, Michael D.
Williams, Scott A.
Mathews, Josh C.
Tremaine, Katie M.
Bhattacharya, Janok
author_sort Jud, Nathan A.
collection PubMed
description The diversification of flowering plants and marked turnover in vertebrate faunas during the mid-Cretaceous transformed terrestrial communities, but the transition is obscured by reduced terrestrial deposition attributable to high sea levels. We report a new fossil assemblage from multiple localities in the Upper Cretaceous Ferron Sandstone Member of the Mancos Shale Formation in Utah. The fossils date to the Turonian, a severely underrepresented interval in the terrestrial fossil record of North America. A large silicified log (maximum preserved diameter, 1.8 m; estimated height, ca. 50 m) is assigned to the genus Paraphyllanthoxylon; it is the largest known pre-Campanian angiosperm and the earliest documented occurrence of an angiosperm tree more than 1.0 m in diameter. Foliage and palynomorphs of ferns, conifers, and angiosperms confirm the presence of mixed forest or woodland vegetation. Previously known terrestrial vertebrate remains from the Ferron Sandstone Member include fish teeth, two short dinosaur trackways, and a pterosaur; we report the first turtle and crocodilian remains and an ornithopod sacrum. Previous studies indicate that angiosperm trees were present by the Cenomanian, but this discovery demonstrates that angiosperm trees approaching 2 m in diameter were part of the forest canopies across southern North America by the Turonian (~92 million years ago), nearly 15 million years earlier than previously thought.
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spelling pubmed-61579592018-09-27 A new fossil assemblage shows that large angiosperm trees grew in North America by the Turonian (Late Cretaceous) Jud, Nathan A. D’Emic, Michael D. Williams, Scott A. Mathews, Josh C. Tremaine, Katie M. Bhattacharya, Janok Sci Adv Research Articles The diversification of flowering plants and marked turnover in vertebrate faunas during the mid-Cretaceous transformed terrestrial communities, but the transition is obscured by reduced terrestrial deposition attributable to high sea levels. We report a new fossil assemblage from multiple localities in the Upper Cretaceous Ferron Sandstone Member of the Mancos Shale Formation in Utah. The fossils date to the Turonian, a severely underrepresented interval in the terrestrial fossil record of North America. A large silicified log (maximum preserved diameter, 1.8 m; estimated height, ca. 50 m) is assigned to the genus Paraphyllanthoxylon; it is the largest known pre-Campanian angiosperm and the earliest documented occurrence of an angiosperm tree more than 1.0 m in diameter. Foliage and palynomorphs of ferns, conifers, and angiosperms confirm the presence of mixed forest or woodland vegetation. Previously known terrestrial vertebrate remains from the Ferron Sandstone Member include fish teeth, two short dinosaur trackways, and a pterosaur; we report the first turtle and crocodilian remains and an ornithopod sacrum. Previous studies indicate that angiosperm trees were present by the Cenomanian, but this discovery demonstrates that angiosperm trees approaching 2 m in diameter were part of the forest canopies across southern North America by the Turonian (~92 million years ago), nearly 15 million years earlier than previously thought. American Association for the Advancement of Science 2018-09-26 /pmc/articles/PMC6157959/ /pubmed/30263954 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aar8568 Text en Copyright © 2018 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) , which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, so long as the resultant use is not for commercial advantage and provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Articles
Jud, Nathan A.
D’Emic, Michael D.
Williams, Scott A.
Mathews, Josh C.
Tremaine, Katie M.
Bhattacharya, Janok
A new fossil assemblage shows that large angiosperm trees grew in North America by the Turonian (Late Cretaceous)
title A new fossil assemblage shows that large angiosperm trees grew in North America by the Turonian (Late Cretaceous)
title_full A new fossil assemblage shows that large angiosperm trees grew in North America by the Turonian (Late Cretaceous)
title_fullStr A new fossil assemblage shows that large angiosperm trees grew in North America by the Turonian (Late Cretaceous)
title_full_unstemmed A new fossil assemblage shows that large angiosperm trees grew in North America by the Turonian (Late Cretaceous)
title_short A new fossil assemblage shows that large angiosperm trees grew in North America by the Turonian (Late Cretaceous)
title_sort new fossil assemblage shows that large angiosperm trees grew in north america by the turonian (late cretaceous)
topic Research Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6157959/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30263954
http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aar8568
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