Several organic and inorganic geochemical analyses have been carried out in the sedimentary record of Borreguil de los Lavaderos la Reina (BdlR-03), an alpine peat bog located on north face Sierra Nevada (southern Iberian Peninsula). This study permitted a high-resolution reconstruction paleoenvironmental evolution for last ~2700 cal yr BP highest mountain range southern Peninsula. An overall t...

Abstract. The Valley of Lakes basin (Mongolia) contains a unique continental sedimentary archive, suitable for constraining the influence tectonics and climate change on aridification Central Asia in Cenozoic. We identify provenance, (post)depositional environment palaeo-climate based sedimentological, petrographical, mineralogical, (isotope) geochemical signatures recorded authigenic detrital ...

Plio-Pleistocene environmental change influenced the evolutionary history of many animal lineages in Africa, highlighting key roles for both climate and tectonics in the evolution of Africa's faunal diversity. Here, we explore diversification in the southern African chacma baboon Papio ursinus sensu lato and reveal a dominant role for increasingly arid landscapes during past glacial cycles in s...

Changes in the record of vertebrate-assemblage zones in the Karoo Basin, South Africa, serve as a model for the response of terrestrial ecosystems to the end-Permian biotic crisis. Vertebrate turnover from the Daptocephalus to Lystrosaurus Assemblage Zone is believed to have begun with the appearance of subtle siltstonecolor variance and is coeval with a unique, laminated lithofacies, both of w...

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...

Substantial evidence exists for wetter-thanmodern continental conditions in North America during the pre-Quaternary warm climate intervals. This is in apparent conflict with the robust global prediction for future climate change of a northward expansion of the subtropical dry zones that should drive aridification of many semiarid regions. Indeed, areas of expected future aridification include m...

The evolution of central Asian drylands during the Cenozoic is a hot topic in paleoclimate research, but underlying mechanism remains unclear. Here, we investigate this with climate modeling based on six key geological periods. Our results indicate that have existed since early Eocene, after which they move northward and become narrower. Although changed land-sea distribution decreased atmosphe...