Abstract The 350 km-long Adjara-Trialeti fold-and-thrust belt of southwestern Georgia is the result structural inversion a continental back-arc basin developed in Paleogene on upper (Eurasian) plate northward subducting northern branch Neotethys. Low-temperature thermochronological data [fission-track and (U-Th)/He analyses apatite] from sedimentary plutonic rocks provide robust constraints tec...

Giraffids include the only living giraffomorph ruminants and are diagnosed by the presence of bi-lobed canines and a special type of epiphyseal cranial appendages called ossicones. The family Giraffidae ranges from the latest early Miocene until today. However they are currently extant relics with only two living representatives, the African genera Okapia and Giraffa. Giraffids were much more d...

The Miocene (∼24 to ∼5 million years ago) was a period of relative global warmth compared to the Quaternary (∼2 million years ago to present; e.g. Zachos et al., 2001) and was characterised by the intermittent glaciation of Antarctica only. Paradoxically, the majority of available proxy data suggest that during the Miocene, pCO2 was similar, or even lower, than the pre-industrial levels (280 pp...

According to David W. Cameron, the goal of his book Hominid Adaptations and Extinctions is “to examine the evolution of ape morphological form in association with adaptive strategies and to understand what were the environmental problems facing Miocene ape groups and how these problems influenced ape adaptive strategies” (p. 4). Cameron describes himself as being “acknowledged internationally a...

BACKGROUND Prophoca and Leptophoca represent the oldest known genera of phocine seals, dating from the latest early to middle Miocene. Originally, Prophoca rousseaui and Prophoca proxima were described based on fragmentary remains from the Miocene of Belgium. However, several researchers contested the union of Prophoca rousseaui and Prophoca proxima into one genus, without providing evidence. T...