Pleistocene history of vegetation and flora

Behre, Karl-Ernst; van der Knaap, W.O. (Pim) (2023). Pleistocene history of vegetation and flora. In: Lang, Gerhard; Ammann, Brigitta; Behre, Karl-Ernst; Tinner, Willy (eds.) Quaternary Vegetation Dynamics of Europe (pp. 73-134). Bern: Haupt Verlag

Text 2023_QuatVegeDynEurope_073.pdf - Published Version Restricted to registered users only Available under License Publisher holds Copyright. Download (10MB)

Before the Pleistocene: the Tertiary
Most of the stock of species that dominated European vegetation in the Quaternary developed during the Tertiary but the first steps had already been made in the preceding Cretaceous. Ferns and gymnosperms prevailed in the lower Cretaceous and from the Middle Cretaceous the Angiosperms emerged and evolved rapidly. At the transition to the Tertiary the latter were already present with many species and had often replaced the archaic plant communities. Most of the modern families and genera already existed at the onset of the Tertiary. Their differentiation into species resulted in the situation that, already in the Miocene, fossil plant remains show only slight differences from modern species.
In the course of the Tertiary, European vegetation development was for the most part determined by changes in geography, geology and climate. In this process, plate tectonics played an important role. In the preceding geological formations the Eurasian Plate and the African Plate were separated by sea-floor spreading. This led to a wide, west–east, world-spanning sea-belt: the Tethys that reached as far as east Asia. It is in the Tethys and its lateral seas that the calcareous Mesozoic and Old-Tertiary sediments, which are frequently encountered in central Europe and the Mediterranean region, were deposited. In the course of crustal movements starting in the Middle Cretaceous the African Plate shifted northwards.

Interest & Impact

Downloads

1 since deposited on 08 Aug 2023
1 in the past 12 months

Citations

5 Citations in Web of Science ®
6 Citations in Scopus

Search

in Google Scholar™

Services

Actions (login required)

Edit item

Actions (login required)

Edit item