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Looks at the fossil plant history of Antarctica and its relationship to the global record of environmental and climate change.
Presents a comprehensive overview of the fossil record of Antarctica framed within its changing environmental settings. Jeffrey Stilwell, Monash University; John Long, Australian palaentologist, currently at Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, USA.
Antarctic Paleobiology discusses the current status of paleobiology, principally paleobotany and palynology in Antarctica, and the interrelationship of Antarctic floras to those of other Gondwana continents. It provides a broad coverage of the major groups of plants on the one hand, while on the other seeking to evaluate the vegetational history and the physical and biological parameters that influence the distribution of floras through time and space. The biologic activity is discussed within a framework of the geologic history, including the tectonic and paleogeographic history of the region. Finally, the reader will find a comprehensive bibliography of Gondwana paleobotany and palynology.
Antarctica preserves a rock record that spans three and a half billion years of history and has a remarkable story to tell about the evolution of our Earth, from the hottest crustal rocks yet found in an orogenic system, to the assembly and breakup of Gondwana in the Phanerozoic. This volume highlights our improved understanding of the tectonic events that have shaped Antarctica and how these potentially relate to supercontinent assembly and fragmentation. The internal constitution of the East Antarctic Shield is assessed using information available from the basement geology and from detritus preserved as Mesozoic sediments in the Trans Antarctic Mountains. Accretionary orogenesis along the proto-Pacific margin of Antarctica is examined and the volumes of intracrustal melting compared with juvenile magma additions in these complex orogenic systems assessed. This special volume demonstrates the diversity of approaches required to elucidate and understand crustal evolution and evaluate the supercontinent concept.
This book is the third in aseries of publications devoted to the biogeographieal and ecological research in the Southern Hemisphere, published in the "Monographiae Biologicae". After dealing with Australia (vol. VIII) and Southern Africa (Vol. XIV) it was thought essential to include Antarctiea in this series. Ever since the expedition of the "Belgiea" made the first suc cessful wintering within the antarctie circle in 1898 and brought back a very rieh harvest of scientific data, Belgium kept a vivid interest in Antarctiea and took an active part in the modern and international exploration of this vast continent. As part of their programs for the International Geophysieal Year (I. G. Y. ) twelve nations established permanent or semi-permanent bases on the Antarctie Continent or on subantarctie islands. Thus a new era of vast and free international scientific collaboration in the Antarctie was opened and it culminated in the formulation and the signing of the Antarctic Treaty (Washington 1959). It was recognized and accepted that "Antarctiea" shall be used for peaceful purposes only and "Freedom of scientific investigation in Antarctiea and coopera tion toward that end, as applied during the I. G. Y. , shall continue . . " In order to organize this collaboration e. g. by full exchange of programs and resuIts a "Special Committee on Antarctie Research" (S. C. A. R. ) was founded in 1957.
Published by the American Geophysical Union as part of the Antarctic Research Series, Volume 60. The Antarctic continent and the surrounding Southern Ocean represent one of the major climate engines of the Earth: coupled components critical in the Earth's environmental system. The contributions in this volume help with the understanding of the long-term evolution of Antarctica's environment and biota. The aim of this and the preceding companion volume is to help place the modern system within a historical context. The environment and biosphere of the Antarctic region have undergone dynamic changes through geologic time. These, in turn, have played a key role in long-term global paleoenvironmental evolution. The development of the Southern Ocean itself, resulting from plate tectonism, created first-order changes in the circulation of the global ocean, in turn affecting meridional heat transport and hence global climates. Biospheric changes responded to the changing oceanic climatic states. Comprehension of the climatic and oceano-graphic processes that have operated at various times in Antarctica's history is crucial to the understanding of the present-day global environmental system. This knowledge will become increasingly important in parallel with concerns about anthropogenically caused global change. How vulnerable is the Antarctic region, especially its ice sheets, to global warming? The question is not parochial, given the potential of sea level change resulting from any Antarctic cryospheric development. Conversely, how much of a role does the Antarctic region, this giant icebox, play in moderating global, including sea level, change?
This book divides Antarctica into eight ice-free regions and provides information on the soils of each region. Soils have been studied in Antarctica for nearly 100 years. Although only 0.35% (45,000 km2) of Antarctica is ice-free, its weathered, unconsolidated material qualify as “soils”. Soils of Antarctica is richly illustrated with nearly 150 images and provisional maps are provided for several key ice-free areas.
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.
Geological Evolution of Antarctica is a collection of papers presented at the Fifth International Symposium on Antarctic Earth Sciences, held under the auspices of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) at Robinson College, Cambridge, 23-28 August 1987. Contributors were invited to address problems related to the tectonic evolution of the Antarctic crust and the palaeoenvironmental evolution of Antartica since the Late Mesozoic. One hundred and seventy two papers and posters were presented, of which one hundred and fifteen are included in this volume. Papers dealing with the crustal development of Antarctica are divided into major geographical areas and arranged in chronostratigraphic order. The first four sections in this group cover the craton, the Transantarctic Mountains, Weddell Sea-Ross Sea region and the Pacific margin; the last addresses aspects of Gondwana break-up. A final group of papers discusses some of the environmental changes arising from the break-up of Gondwana.
Antarctica, a vast land remote from the other continents and still the least known of them all, provides a unique international laboratory for science. Despite the costs, a growing number of countries are supporting basic scientific research on the continent and in its surrounding seas. Our knowledge of life in this extreme environment, although limited, suggests that it is a key environment for many areas of science. Potential economic developments for food and minerals as well as increasing political complications might jeopardise the present scientific accord in the future. Now is the time to take stock: what do we know about Antarctic ecology? What are the threats and how can they be met? In this volume Antarctic scientists from six countries write about the Antarctic ecosystem.