A tropical rainforest in Colorado 1.4 million years after the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary

被引：102
作者：
Johnson, KR [1 ]
Ellis, B [1 ]
机构：
[1] Denver Museum Nat & Sci, Dept Earth Sci, Denver, CO 80205 USA
来源：
SCIENCE | 2002年 / 296卷 / 5577期
关键词：
D O I：
10.1126/science.1072102
中图分类号：
O [数理科学和化学]; P [天文学、地球科学]; Q [生物科学]; N [自然科学总论];
学科分类号：
07 ; 0710 ; 09 ;
摘要：
An extremely diverse lower Paleocene (64.1 million years ago) fossil leaf site from Castle Rock, Colorado, contains fossil litter that is similar to the litter of extant equatorial rainforests. The presence of a high-diversity tropical rainforest is unexpected, because other Paleocene floras are species-poor, a feature generally attributed to the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) extinction. The site occurs on the margin of the Denver Basin in synorogenic sedimentary rocks associated with the rise of the Laramide Front Range. Orographic conditions caused by local topography, combined with equable climate, appear to have allowed for the establishment of rainforests within 1.4 million years of the K-T boundary.
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收藏
页码：2379 / 2383
页数：6
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