The Cenozoic volcanic activity of the Harrat Ash Sham volcanic field in south of Syria is a part of the extensive magmatism that took place in the auxiliary extension faults along the Dead Sea Fault Zone from upper Eocene to Holocene. Pliocene volcanic rocks form an important part of igneous succession in Syrian Part of Harrat as Sham. These rocks vary from basalts flows to scoria. Pliocene bas...

The Late Pliocene epoch is a potential analogue for future climate in a warming world. Here we reconstruct Plio-Pleistocene East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) variability using cosmogenic nuclide exposure ages and model simulations to better understand ice sheet behaviour under such warm conditions. New and previously published exposure ages indicate interior-thickening during the Pliocene. An ice...

Pliocene fluviolacustrine deposits within the Yushe Basin of Shanxi Province are extremely well developed, and contain abundant paleobotanical remains. Representative taxa from the early to middle Pliocene include: Magnolia, Liquidambar, Platycarya, Tsuga, and others, indicating a northern subtropical dense forest for the landscape of the Yushe basin during that period. There was, however, a tr...

The monsoon is a fundamental component of Earth's climate. The Pliocene warm period is characterized by long-term global cooling yet concurrent monsoon dynamics are poorly known. Here we present the first fully quantified and calibrated reconstructions of separate Pliocene air temperature and East Asian summer monsoon precipitation histories on the Chinese Loess Plateau through joint analysis o...

The early-to-mid Pliocene (3–5.3 Ma) is the most recent geologic period of significant global warmth. Proxy records of Pliocene sea surface temperature (SST) indicate significant and still unexplained warm anomalies of 3∘C–9∘C in midlatitude eastern boundary currents, where present-day cool temperatures are maintained by wind-driven upwelling. Here we quantify the effect of large-scale Pliocene...

Pliocene Model Intercomparison Project: implementation strategy and mid-Pliocene Global climatology using GENESIS v3.0 GCM S. J. Koenig, R. M. DeConto, and D. Pollard Department of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 611 N. Pleasant Street, Amherst, MA 01003, USA Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, Pennsylvania State University, 2217 E...

Investigations in Wright Valley, adjacent to the Transantarctic Mountains in East Antarctica, shed light on the question of whether high-latitude Pliocene climate was warm enough to cause widespread deglaciation of the East Antarctic craton with a concurrent Magellanic moorland-like environment. If Pliocene-age diatoms, presently in glaciogenic deposits high in the Transantarctic Mountains, had...

This paper reviews North Atlantic shelf seas palaeoclimate during the interval 4-3Ma, prior to and incorporating the 'Mid-Pliocene warm period' (ca 3.29-2.97Ma). Fossil assemblages and stable isotope data demonstrate northwards extension of subtropical faunas along the coast of the Carolinas-Virginia (Yorktown and Duplin Formations) relative to the present day, suggesting a more vigorous Florid...

Molecular studies of population divergence and speciation across the Oriental Region are sparse, despite the region's high biodiversity and extensive Pliocene and Pleistocene environmental change. A molecular phylogenetic study of the Neocellia Series of Anopheles mosquitoes was undertaken to identify patterns of diversification across the Oriental Region and to infer the role of Pleistocene an...

Climate sensitivity—the mean global temperature response to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentrations through radiative forcing and associated feedbacks—is estimated at 1.5–4.5 ◦C (ref. 1). However, this value incorporates only relatively rapid feedbacks such as changes in atmospheric water vapour concentrations, and the distributions of sea ice, clouds and aerosols2. Earth-system climate se...