Valentine and Moores [Valentine JW, Moores EM (1970) Nature 228:657-659] hypothesized that plate tectonics regulates global biodiversity by changing the geographic arrangement of continental crust, but the data required to fully test the hypothesis were not available. Here, we use a global database of marine animal fossil occurrences and a paleogeographic reconstruction model to test the hypoth...

The most spectacular example of a plate convergence event on Earth is the motion of the Indian plate towards Eurasia at speeds in excess of 18 cmyr−1 (ref. 1), and the subsequent collision. Continental buoyancy usually stalls subduction shortly after collision, as is seen in most sections of the Alpine–Himalayan chain. However, in the Indian section of this chain, plate velocities were merely r...

1. Environmental sorting, historical factors and neutral dynamics may all drive beta diversity (change in species composition across space), but their relative importance remains unresolved. In the case of European mammals, key potential drivers of large-scale beta diversity include current climate, neutral dynamics and two historical factors: Pleistocene glaciations and peninsular dynamics (im...

The initial isotopic compositions of Nd and Sr in basalts from the Central Siberian Plateau and other major continental flood basalts are reported. The continental flood basalts appear to be the product of partial melting of mantle sources that consist of relatively primitive undifferentiated material and are clearly distinct from midocean ridge basalts, which sample mantle reservoirs that have...

I prepared compilations of geochemical data from the central part of the Mexican Volcanic Belt (C-MVB), the Central American Volcanic Arc (CAVA) from Guatemala to northwestern Costa Rica, the continental arc of the Andes in South America, other mostly island arcs, extensional and continental break-up regions, and continental rifts. Using quantitative statistical methods, the origin of the C-MVB...

■ Abstract The Cordilleran orogen of western North America is a segment of the Circum-Pacific orogenic belt where subduction of oceanic lithosphere has been underway along a great circle of the globe since breakup of the supercontinent Pangea began in Triassic time. Early stages of Cordilleran evolution involved Neoproterozoic rifting of the supercontinent Rodinia to trigger miogeoclinal sedime...

Numerical time integrations of a general circulation model of the atmosphere are performed with both modern and ice age boundary conditions. It is shown that the climate of continental portions of the tropics in the ice age simulation is much drier than that of the modern climate simulation. According to comparisons of results from the two experiments, tropical continental aridity of the ice ag...

Variations in continental volcanic arc emissions have the potential to control atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels and climate change on multimillion-year time scales. Here we present a compilation of ~120,000 detrital zircon uranium-lead (U-Pb) ages from global sedimentary deposits as a proxy to track the spatial distribution of continental magmatic arc systems from the Cryogenian period t...

Melting of the mantle during continental breakup leads to magmatic intrusion and volcanism, yet our understanding of the location and dominant mechanisms of melt generation in rifting environments is impeded by a paucity of direct observations of mantle melting. It is unclear when during the rifting process the segmented nature of magma supply typical of seafloor spreading initiates. Here, we u...