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Meyer Desert Formation biota

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The Meyer Desert Formation biota is a fossilized biota (flora and fauna) found in the Dominion Range in the Transantarctic Mountains in Antarctica, alongside the Beardmore Glacier.

Since about 15 million years ago (Ma), Antarctica has been mostly covered with ice.[1]

Fossil Nothofagus leaves in the Meyer Desert Formation of the Sirius Group show that intermittent warm periods allowed Nothofagus shrubs to cling to the Dominion Range as late as 3–4 Ma (mid-late Pliocene).[2] After that the Pleistocene glaciation covered the whole continent with ice and destroyed all major plant life on it.[3]

Species reported by Ashworth and Cantrill from about 3 million years ago include:

Animals:

Plants:

References

  1. ^ Trewby, Mary, ed. (September 2002). Antarctica: An Encyclopedia from Abbott Ice Shelf to Zooplankton. Firefly Books. ISBN 1-55297-590-8.
  2. ^ Retallack, G. J.; Krull, E. S.; Bockheim, J. G. (2001). "New grounds for reassessing palaeoclimate of the Sirius Group". Journal of the Geological Society, London. 158 (6): 925–35. doi:10.1144/0016-764901-030.
  3. ^ Stefi Weisburd (March 1986). "A forest grows in Antarctica. (an extensive forest may have flourished about 3 million years ago)". Science News. Retrieved 2012-11-02.