Contents 1. Introduction 2. Primary stage of the occurrence of river systems 3. Development of rivers in the Paleozoic 4. Change of hydrography in the Mesozoic 5. Modification of river systems in the Cenozoic 6. Water balance change of the river basins in the Mesozoic-Cenozoic 7. Features of dynamics of the hydrographic network and channel deformations 8. Hydrography and water resources of the ...

The Altai is an enigmatic, relatively young mountain belt with sharp relief (up to 4500 m high) that developed thousands of kilometres away from the nearest current plate margins. Fuyun area, at interface between southern margin Chinese and Junggar Basin, represents a key locality for understanding Meso-Cenozoic deformation exhumation history Altai. complex structural architecture area suggests...

—The living species Ginkgo biloba is phylogenetically isolated, has a relictual distribution, and is morphologically very similar to Mesozoic and Cenozoic congenerics. To investigate what adaptations may have allowed this lineage to persist with little or no morphological change for over 100 Myr, we analyzed both sedimentological and floral data from 51 latest Cretaceous to middle Miocene Ginkg...

The Great Basin of the western United States has proven important for studies of Proterozoic and Paleozoic geology [2500 to 245 million years ago (Ma)] and has been central to the development of ideas about the mechanics of crustal shortening and extension. An understanding of the deformational history of this region during Mesozoic and Cenozoic time (245 Ma to the present) is required for pali...

Chloranthaceae is a small family of flowering plants (65 species) with an extensive fossil record extending back to the Early Cretaceous. Within Chloranthaceae, Hedyosmum is remarkable because of its disjunct distribution--1 species in the Paleotropics and 44 confined to the Neotropics--and a long "temporal gap" between its stem age (Early Cretaceous) and the beginning of the extant radiation (...

Along the Isthmus of Panama 23 paleomagnetic sites were sampled in order to determine preliminary block rotations and paleolatitudinal movements. The lithology selected for this research corresponds to volcanic and sedimentary rocks with ages ranging from Upper Cretaceous to Pleistocene. Counterclockwise vertical axis rotations were uncovered in Paleocene and Oligocene units separated by a sini...

—The late Paleocene-early Eocene transition was characterized by a long period of global warming that culminated with the highest temperatures of the Cenozoic. This interval is associated with a significant increase in plant diversity in temperate latitudes. However, data from tropical regions remain largely unknown. The record of pollen and spore diversity across the late Paleocene to the earl...

The transition from 41to 100-kyr glacial cycles and concomitant increase in global ice volume ~1 Ma remain an enigmatic feature of late Cenozoic climate. Here, we examine the petrology, mineralogy, and geochemistry of the silicate fraction of tills spanning the past 2 Ma from the north-central United States to evaluate the hypothesis that this so-called middle Pleistocene transition (MPT) occur...

Flying fishes are extraordinary aquatic vertebrates capable of gliding great distances over water by exploiting their enlarged pectoral fins and asymmetrical caudal fin. Some 50 species of extant flying fishes are classified in the Exocoetidae (Neopterygii: Teleostei), which have a fossil record no older than the Eocene. The Thoracopteridae is the only pre-Cenozoic group of non-teleosts that sh...

Approximately one-half of all species of amphibians occur in the New World tropics, which includes South America, Middle America, and the West Indies. Of those, 27% (801 species) belong to a large assemblage, the eleutherodactyline frogs, which breed out of water and lay eggs that undergo direct development on land. Their wide distribution and mode of reproduction offer potential for resolving ...