A huge wetland (the 'Pebas system') covered western Amazonia during the Miocene, hosting a highly diverse and endemic aquatic fauna. One of the most contentious issues concerns the existence, potential pathways and effects of marine incursions on this ecosystem. Palaeontological evidences (body fossils) are rare. The finding of a new, presumably marine ostracod species (Pellucistoma curupira sp...

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...

Lithological characteristics of the Asmari Formation in the Burujen area are: pelagic foraminifera wackestone-packstone; bentic foraminifera echinid packstone; bentic foraminifera corallinaceapackstone; coral boundstone and echinid corallinacea packstone to grainstone; corallinacea boundstone; corallinacea bryozoa packstone; rniliolid echinid wackestone; and bioclastic wackestone. The exami...

Pollen analysis of Miocene and Pliocene sediments from southeastern Europe and the northeastern Mediterranean is represented in pollen synthetic diagrams based on ecological criteria in order to clearly visualize changes in the composition and structure of the vegetation through time. New pollen data, together with abundant existing palynological information from this area, show a progressive r...

—A nearly complete fossil skull, including the rostrum, of blue marlin, Makaira nigricans Lacepède, 1802 (Perciformes: Xiphioidei: Istiophoridae), was collected from the Oso Member (latest Miocene) of the Capistrano Formation, Mission Viejo, Orange County, California. The specimen is compared with extant and fossil istiophorids, and 19 of its 20 morphological variables are within the range of v...

--"Falco" ramenta Wetmore 1936 is redescribed and moved to a new genus as Pedlofiierax ramenta (Wetmore). In addition to the holotypical distal end of the tarsometatarsus, this species is now known from a complete tarsometatarsus, humerus, and coracoid from mid-Miocene (Late Hemingfordian and Early Barstovian) fossil localities in the Sheep Creek and Olcott formations, northwestern Nebraska. Pe...

The ages of fluvial deposits at the head of Chesapeake Bay, thought to be the updip, chronostratigraphic equivalents of a well-dated late Oligocene to Quatemary marine sequence in the Salisbury Embayment, are poorly known. We present data regarding a new occurrence of a palynoflora recovered from the Bryn Mawr Formation in Cecil County, Maryland. The floral assemblage for the Bryn Mawr Formatio...

[1] Extension during the middle Cenozoic (43–26 Ma) in the north end of the West Antarctic rift system (WARS) is well constrained by seafloor magnetic anomalies formed at the extinct Adare spreading axis. Kinematic solutions for this time interval suggest a southward decrease in relative motion between East and West Antarctica. Here we present multichannel seismic reflection and seafloor mappin...

INTRODUCTION Geological evolution of the Amazon Basin. The geological history of lowland Amazonia is still poorly understood, in part because much of the Tertiary stratigraphic history has been removed by erosion and that which remains is difficult to study and access in a rainforest environment. The landscape evolution of Amazonia during the Neogene was influenced mainly by Andean tectonics an...