We report gravel of the River Euphrates, capped by basalt that is Ar-Ar dated to ∼9 Ma, at Shireen in northern Syria. This gravel, preserved by the erosion-resistant basalt, allows us for the first time to reconstruct the history of this major river during the Late Miocene. In response to progressive regional surface uplift, the Euphrates extended SE by ∼800 km between the early Middle Miocene,...

New fossils of giant, flightless penguinlike birds have been found in late Oligocene and early Miocene rocks in Japan and in the state of Washington. These birds belong to the order Pelecaniformes, in the extinct family Plotopteridae, previously known by a single fragment of bone from California. Hindlimb and pelvic morphology is most similar to that of Recent anhingas, but the wing is paddleli...

Background: We developed a method to estimate precipitation using mammalian ecomorphology, specifically the relative height of the molars of herbivores (see companion paper, this issue). Question: If we apply the new method to paleoenvironments, do the results agree with previous results from fossil mammals and paleobotanical proxies? Data: Large herbivorous fossil mammals of Eurasia. Data from...

We hypothesize the phylogenetic relationships of the agamid genus Phrynocephalus to assess how past environmental changes shaped the evolutionary and biogeographic history of these lizards and especially the impact of paleogeography and climatic factors. Phrynocephalus is one of the most diverse and taxonomically confusing lizard genera. As a key element of Palearctic deserts, it serves as a pr...

A Middle Miocene (Early Badenian) Rissooidea assemblage with 19 species of ten genera is described and illustrated from the fossiliferous locality at Letkés (Börzsöny Mts, Hungary). The material represents most highly diverse occurrence superfamily in Pannonian Basin System. Nine are recorded for first time this region. Rissoa federicoi nom. nov. proposed as new name junior homonym Rissoia (Tur...

The recently collected fauna of Armantes 1A in Chron C5Br of the Armantes section necessitates reinterpretation of the previous bioand magnetostratigraphical correlations between the Armantes and Vargas sections (Calatayud–Daroca Basin, Central Spain) [W. Krijgsman, M. Garcés, C.G. Langereis, R. Daams, J. van Dam, A.J. van der Meulen, J. Agustı́, L. Cabrera, A new chronology for the Middle to La...

There is a considerable controversy about whether western Amazonia was ever covered by marine waters during the Miocene [23 to 5 Ma (million years ago)]. We investigated the possible occurrence of Miocene marine incursions in the Llanos and Amazonas/Solimões basins, using sedimentological and palynological data from two sediment cores taken in eastern Colombia and northwestern Brazil together w...

The Late Miocene development of faunas and environments in western Eurasia is well known, but the climatic and environmental processes that controlled its details are incompletely understood. Here we map the rise and fall of the classic Pikermian fossil mammal chronofauna between 12 and 4.2 Ma, using genus-level faunal similarity between localities. To directly relate land mammal community evol...

This study presents results from the Community Climate System Model 3 (CCSM3) forced with early to middle Miocene (;20–14 Ma) vegetation, topography, bathymetry, and modern CO2. A decrease in the meridional temperature gradient of 6.58C and an increase in global mean temperature of 1.58C are modeled in comparison with a control simulation forced with modern boundary conditions. Seasonal polewar...