E&E Seminar: “Tropical Forests: A 300-Million-Year Journey” by Fabiany Herrera (Field Museum)
April 15, 2025
12:30 PM - 1:30 PM
Location
SELE 4289
Calendar
Download iCal FilePlease join us April 15th at 12:30pm in SELE 4289 for an E&E Seminar featuring "Tropical Forests: A 300-Million-Year Journey" by Fabiany Herrera (Field Museum)
Host: Robie Mason-Gamer
Abstract: Modern tropical forests are Earth’s most diverse terrestrial habitats, yet their early history and the rise to dominance of angiosperms remain poorly understood. The Field Museum’s paleobotanical collections house over 20,000 siderite concretions from the Mazon Creek area of northern Illinois, USA, containing fossil plants from the Middle Pennsylvanian period. Many of these fossils preserve exceptional three-dimensional morphology and, in some cases, anatomical details. Our analyses demonstrate that μCT imaging can reveal fine structural details of Mazon Creek plant fossils, although mineralization can either enhance or obscure critical information. These findings offer valuable guidance for selecting and prioritizing fossil specimens preserved in siderite concretions for future research. Fossil pollen and spore studies suggest that angiosperm diversification began at low paleolatitudes during the Early Cretaceous. At that time, northern South America is typically reconstructed as an arid equatorial belt, aligning with evidence from the Crato Formation in northeastern Brazil. However, new paleobotanical data from Colombia and Ecuador indicate the presence of richer, mesomorphic vegetation, supporting some paleoclimate models. This raises the possibility that early angiosperm lineages, along with rapidly evolving groups of other seed plants and ferns, thrived in low-paleolatitude ecosystems that are still poorly understood. Current research aims to clarify the earliest phases of angiosperm evolution in northwestern Gondwana and to illuminate the floristic composition of Early Cretaceous forests in northwestern South America. These insights will contribute to the debate on whether the tropics have consistently served as a cradle of plant evolution.
Date posted
Nov 14, 2024
Date updated
Mar 11, 2025