Thesis Contreras L October Revised
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Terrestrial ecosystems on a Greenhouse Earth: Climate and vegetation in the high southern latitudes during the early Paleogene Dissertation for attaining the PhD degree of Natural Sciences Submitted to the Faculty of Geosciences and Geography of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt am Main By Lineth Contreras Arias from Bogotá (Colombia) Frankfurt am Main 2014 accepted by the faculty of Geosciences and Geography of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University as a dissertation Dean: Prof. Dr. Ulrich Achatz Expert assessors: Prof. Dr. Jörg Pross Prof. Dr. Henk Brinkhuis Prof. Dr. Silke Voigt Examination board: Prof. Dr. Jörg Pross Prof. Dr. Silke Voigt Prof. Dr. Jens Herrle Prof. Dr. Eberhard Gischler Date of the disputation: April 24, 2015 Table of contents Table of contents Table of contents ................................................................................................................... 3 List of figures ........................................................................................................................ 5 List of tables .......................................................................................................................... 7 Abstract ................................................................................................................................. 8 Chapter 1. Introduction ................................................................................................... 9 1.1 Early Paleogene Greenhouse Earth ......................................................................... 10 1.2 Vegetation during the early Paleogene: A focus on the southern high latitudes ..... 12 1.3 Focus of this research .............................................................................................. 16 1.4 Terrestrial ecosystems from marine pollen records at the Australo-Antarctic region… ............................................................................................................................ 16 1.5 Proxy for reconstructing vegetation: Pollen and spores .......................................... 18 1.6 Quantitative methods for inferences of diversity and composition of the vegetation.. ....................................................................................................................... 20 1.7 Paleoclimatic estimations based on pollen and spores ............................................ 21 1.8 Comparison with organic proxies ........................................................................... 23 1.9 Framework of this thesis ......................................................................................... 24 Chapter 2. Persistent near-tropical warmth on the Antarctic continent during the early Eocene epoch ............................................................................................................ 27 Abstract ............................................................................................................................ 27 2.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 28 2.2 Results and Discussion ............................................................................................ 29 2.3 Methods summary ................................................................................................... 34 2.4 Supplementary Information for Chapter 2 .............................................................. 35 Chapter 3. Early to Middle Eocene vegetation dynamics at the Wilkes Land Margin (Antarctica) ....................................................................................................... 61 Abstract ............................................................................................................................ 61 3.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 62 3.2 Study site ................................................................................................................. 63 3.3 Methods ................................................................................................................... 65 3.4 Results ..................................................................................................................... 69 3.5 Discussion ............................................................................................................... 74 3.6 Conclusions ............................................................................................................. 80 Chapter 4. Terrestrial climate dynamics in the Tasmanian sector of the Southwest Pacific Ocean during the Paleocene-Eocene deduced from a marine pollen record (ODP Site 1172, East Tasman Plateau) ............................................................................ 81 Abstract ............................................................................................................................ 81 4.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 82 4.2 Material and methods .............................................................................................. 85 3 Table of contents 4.3 Results ..................................................................................................................... 92 4.4 Interpretation ........................................................................................................... 96 4.5 Conclusions ........................................................................................................... 107 4.6 Supplementary Information for Chapter 4 ............................................................ 108 Chapter 5. Conclusions and Outlook ......................................................................... 117 6.1 Conclusions ........................................................................................................... 117 6.2 Outlook .................................................................................................................. 119 Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................... 121 References ......................................................................................................................... 123 Zusammenfassung ............................................................................................................ 148 Appendices ........................................................................................................................ 153 Appendix 1 Taxonomy Site U1356 ................................................................................ 153 Appendix 2 Taxonomy Site 1172 ................................................................................... 170 Declaration of contribution ............................................................................................. 186 Curriculum Vitae ............................................................................................................. 189 4 List of figures List of figures Figure 1.1 Cenozoic atmospheric CO2 and deep-sea temperatures ..................................... 10 Figure 1.2 Modelled and estimated SSTs of the early Eocene ............................................ 12 Figure 1.3 Modern and Eocene extent of vegetation types ................................................ 13 Figure 1.4 Middle Paleocene to middle Eocene vegetation - Southern high latitudes ........ 15 Figure 1.5 Australo-Antarctic region during the early Paleocene and middle Eocene ....... 17 Figure 1.6 Steps of the palynological laboratory processing .............................................. 19 Figure 1.7 Temperature profiles of informative taxa. ......................................................... 22 Figure 2.1 Location of Site U1356 and Antarctica at early Eocene times. ......................... 29 Figure 2.2 Sporomorphs record of Site U1356 (selected taxa) .......................................... 30 Figure 2.3 Paleoclimatic reconstructions of Site U1356. .................................................... 32 Supplementary Figure S2.1 Age model of Site U1356 ..................................................... 37 Supplementary Figure S2.2 NMDS results of Site U1356 ................................................ 40 Supplementary Figure S2.3 Rarefaction results of Site U1356 ........................................ 41 Supplementary Figure S2.4 Temperature reconstructions of Site U1356 ......................... 45 Supplementary Figure S2.5 Precipitation reconstructions of Site U1356. ........................ 46 Supplementary Figure S2.6 Neodymium isotopic compositions ...................................... 52 Supplementary Figure S2.7 Photomicrographs of key taxa of Site U1356 ....................... 60 Figure 3.1 Present-day and Eocene configuration of Oceania and Antarctica .................... 68 Figure 3.2 Range chart of sporomorphs of Site U1356 ....................................................... 70 Figure 3.3 Diversity and DCA results of Site U1356. ......................................................... 73 Figure 3.4 Species accumulation curves of Site U1356 and Holocene records .................. 78 Figure 4.1 Location of Site 1172 and SW Pacific Ocean at early Eocene times ................. 84 Figure 4.2 Sporomorphs record of Site 1172 (selected taxa). ............................................