Cenozoic Plants and Climates of the Arctic

Fifty million years ago, the Arctic Ocean was a warm sea, bounded by lush vegetation of the warm-temperate shores of Scandinavia, Siberia, Alaska and the Northwest Territories. Wind and storms were rare because Atlantic weather systems had not developed but, as today, polar day length added a hostile element to this otherwise tranquil climate.
With the aid of scientists from all the countries close to the Arctic Circle, this book describes the palaeontology, the statistical analysis of vegetational features, comparisons with atmospheric, marine, and geological features and some of the first models of plant migration developed from newly constructed databases.

Proceeidngs of the NATO Advances Research Workshop on Reconstruction of North Atlantic Climate Change Using Extinct Plant Data, held in London, UK, November 11-16, 1993

This volume reviews the evidence from plants of the Arctic's past 75 million years which help reconstruct this strange and romantic place. For the first time work from all the countries close to the Arctic Circle comes together in the same volume, and the basis for further cooperation between America, Europe and Russia is explained.

Section 1: Introduction.- Towards a Review of Tertiary Palacobotany in the Boreal Realm.- Fossil Plants as Palaeoenvironmental Indicators.- Section 2: The Atmosphere, Tectonics and the Marine Realm.- Palaeo-Ecophysiological Studies on Cretaceous and Tertiary Fossil Floras.- Cenozoic Tectono-Magmatic Events in the North Atlantic: Potential Palaeo-Environmental Implications.- Cenozoic Dinoflagellate Palaeoecology Elucidated, and Used for Marine-Terrestrial Biological Correlation.- Late Eocene-Oligocene Dinoflagellate Provincialism in the North Atlantic Ocean.- Dinoflagellate Cysts and Climate Change Through the Neogene.- Section 3: Comparisons with other Evidence.- Comparison of Palaeo Data Based on Plant and Foraminiferal Evidence from the Cenozoic of Northeast Asia (Koryak Hills, Kamchatka).- Tertiary Climate Changes in the Far East Based on Palaeofloristic and Palaeomagnetic Data.- Section 4: Palaeobotanical Evidence.- A Review of Late Cretaceous Floras and Climates of Arctic Russia.- Late Cretaceous Artic Platanoids and High Latitude Climate.- Circum-Arctic Plant Fossils and the Cretaceous-Tertiary Transition.- Early Tertiary Vegetation of Arctic Canada and Its Relevance to Paleoclimatic Interpretation.- Two Conifers - Tetraclinis Mast. (Cupressaceae) and Metasequoia Miki (Taxodiaceae) - Relicts or Palaeoclimatic Indicators of the Past.- The Palaeogene Flora of Spitsbergen: Implications for Arcto-Tertiary Climatostratigraphy.- Alaskan Palaeogene Climates as Inferred from the Clamp Database.- Invasion of Arcto-Tertiary Elements in the Paleogene of Central Europe.- Connecting Links Between the Arctic Paleocene and European Tertiary Floras.- An Estimate of the Early Tertiary Paleoclimate of the Southern Arctic.- The Fossil of the Paleogene Climatic Optimun in NorthEastern Asia.- Some Early Paleocene Species from western Kamchatka.- Migrations and Evolution: Computerised Maps from Computerised Data.- Floristic Changes in the Areas Surrounding the Paratethys During Neogene Time.- Some Late Pliocene and Early Pleistocene Pollen Profiles from Poland.- Section 5: A Challenge and the Future.- Arcto-Tertiary '93 : Perspectives and Prospects.- Plans for Further International Cooperation.