Here we describe the first record of a chalicothere from the Miocene of Myanmar. The chalicothere, documented by a par− tial mandible, was unearthed from the lower portion of the Irrawaddy Formation in the region of Magway, Central Myanmar. The Burmese material belongs to an early late Miocene fauna which recently yielded hominoid remains attrib− uted to Khoratpithecus. The specimen, which is a...

Field mapping and geochronologic and thermobarometric analyses of the Gurla Mandhata area, in southwest Tibet, reveal major middle to late Miocene, east-west extension along a normal-fault system, termed the Gurla Mandhata detachment system. The maximum fault slip occurs along a pair of low-angle normal faults that have caused significant tectonic denudation of the Tethyan Sedimentary Sequence,...

The origin of the astonishing New Caledonian biota continues to fuel a heated debate among advocates of a Gondwanan relict scenario and defenders of late oceanic dispersal. Here, we study the origin of New Caledonian Trigonopterus flightless weevils using a multimarker molecular phylogeny. We infer two independent clades of species found in the archipelago. Our dating estimates suggest a Late M...

A decrease in the ratio of 18O to 16O (delta18O) of sedimentary carbonate from the Bolivian Altiplano has been interpreted to indicate rapid surface uplift of the late Miocene Andean plateau (AP). Here we report on paleoclimate simulations of Andean surface uplift with an atmospheric general circulation model (GCM) that tracks oxygen isotopes in vapor. The GCM predicts changes in atmospheric ci...

Nambaroo bullockensis sp. nov. is a structurally primitive macropodoid from the Bullock Creek Local Fauna of the Camfield Beds of the Northern Territory, Australia. This species extends the range of Nambaroo from the late Oligocene or early Miocene up to the middle Miocene. Despite its young age, N. bullockensis retains many features thought to be plesiomorphic for macropodoids. Cladistic analy...

Thermobarometric and Os isotopic data for peridotite xenoliths from late Miocene and younger lavas in the Sierra Nevada reveal that the lithospheric mantle is vertically stratified: the shallowest portions (<45 to 60 kilometers) are cold (670 degrees to 740 degrees C) and show evidence for heating and yield Proterozoic Os model ages, whereas the deeper portions (45 to 100 kilometers) yield Phan...

Analysis of mtDNA sequence variation (2,548 bp from ND2, cytb, and part of the control region) indicates that the genus Cyprinodon began diverging in the Late Miocene from a common ancestor with Megupsilon, a monotypic genus on the Mesa del Norte of Mexico. The geographic pattern of mtDNA variation, with estimates of divergence time, suggests that by the end of the Miocene Cyprinodon occurred f...

During the late Miocene, a dramatic global expansion of C4 plant distribution occurred with broad spatial and temporal variations. Although the event is well documented, whether subsequent expansions were caused by a decreased atmospheric CO2 concentration or climate change is a contentious issue. In this study, we used an improved inverse vegetation modeling approach that accounts for the phys...

Fieldwork in the Yuanmou Basin of southern China has uncovered a large assemblage of late Miocene hominoid fossils assigned to Lufengpithecus hudienensis. Two mandibular first molars from this species were made available for histological analysis as part of a larger ongoing study on the ontogeny of dental development in Miocene to Recent hominoids. Results are compared with published and unpubl...

The Late Miocene-Early Pliocene Hyargas-Nuur formation in Western Mongolia yielded a rich fauna of birds which contributes significantly to our knowledge of the Neogene avian diversity in Asia. A study of new fossil remains, collected during the last 20 years, and a revision of several previously described taxa are presented in this paper. Cygnus pristinus is shown to be clearly separable from ...