The response of vegetation on the Andean flank in western Amazonia to Pleistocene climate change.

A reconstruction of past environmental change from Ecuador reveals the response of lower montane forest on the Andean flank in western Amazonia to glacial-interglacial global climate change. Radiometric dating of volcanic ash indicates that deposition occurred ~324,000 to 193,000 years ago during parts of Marine Isotope Stages 9, 7, and 6. Fossil pollen and wood preserved within organic sediments suggest that the composition of the forest altered radically in response to glacial-interglacial climate change.

Carbon isotope ratio analysis of organic moieties from fossil mummified wood: establishing optimum conditions for off-line pyrolysis extraction using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry.

Mummified fossil wood was studied using off-line pyrolysis-gas chromatography/mass spectrometry to reveal detailed insights into the pyrolysis conditions that are needed to obtain simultaneously sufficient amounts of both cellulose and lignin markers for stable carbon isotope analyses. The off-line pyrolysis was applied at a range of temperatures (200, 250 and 300 degrees C) and times (1 and 2 h) to determine the optimum temperature and time that yielded the highest quantity of true markers for lignin and cellulose. Increasing the time from 1 to 2 h had no effect whereas increasing the temperature led to large differences.

A fossil fern indicator of epiphytism in a Tertiary flora.

The first known indicator of probable fern epiphytism in the Tertiary fossil record is documented from the Eocene London Clay of southeast England. This pyritised fern rachis exhibits major deviation from the basic form of petiolar vascular trace morphology shown by the other London Clay fossil ferns and is here attributed to the Polypodiaceae. This represents the first known occurrence of this family in the London Clay macroflora, and brings the total of distinct fern rachis types from the Lower Tertiary of southeast England to six.