14 documents found, page 1 of 2

On a coal specimen possibly associated with the classical Mio-Pleistocene São J...

Due to the unusual presence of coal seams within a volcanic island, the São Jorge lignite, located in the north side of Madeira Island, was since the early 19th century a magnet for naturalists. In 1854 the site was visited by Sir Charles Lyell and Georg Hartung, where both discovered a leaf-bed associated with the lignite. This finding pro vided key proofs to Lyell's uniformitarian theory of the formation of v...

Is there solid evidence of widespread landscape disturbance in the Azores befor...

Raposeiro et al. conclude that human occupation of the Azores islands began between 700 and 850 CE, causing widespread landscape disturbance and raising doubts about the islands’ presumed pristine nature when the Portuguese arrived. However, previous paleoecological studies from Flores, Pico, and Sao Miguel Islands (Table 1) show that permanent changes in the vegetation occurred only after the early 15th centur...

Is there solid evidence of widespread landscape disturbance in the Azores befor...

The Quaternary palaeobotany of Madeira and Azores volcanic archipelagos (Portug...

Palaeobotanical research on oceanic islands has been largely ignored despite its importance to provide empirical proofs to disentangle insular plant diversity, evolution, ecology and biogeography. Here we use the oceanic archipelagos of Madeira and Azores as a ‘testing ground’, via fieldwork, laboratorial and collection-based research, to demonstrate the existence of well-preserved and palaeobiological informat...

The bicentenary of Georg Hartung, a German pioneer geologist, explorer, and ill...

We present a tribute to Georg Friedrich Karl Hartung (1821–1891), a less-known, non-academic German geologist, on his 200th birthday anniversary. Influenced by eminent 19th century scientific personalities, such as Oswald Heer, Charles Lyell, and Alexander von Humboldt, he performed pioneer geological observations and sampling in the Azores, Madeira, and Canary Islands volcanic archipelagos. Later in his life, ...

Tracing insular woodiness in giant Daucus (s.l.) fruit fossils from the Early P...

Plants on oceanic islands can evolve insular syndromes such as secondary woodiness, a generalized trend found in island floras worldwide. This phenomenon occurs through evolution in situ. It is triggered by ecological and physiological stimuli that trans form herbaceous annuals into woody perennials. However, well-dated and informative fossils that could help track and frame the evo lution of this syndrome are ...

Oceanic Island forests buried by Holocene (Meghalayan) explosive eruptions: pal...

In Faial Island (Azores Archipelago, North Atlantic Ocean), charcoalified and mummified wood fossils have been reported within late Holocene (Meghalayan) pyroclastic deposits from the Caldeira Formation. Due to their recent age, a detailed study conveys a snapshot into Azorean palaeophytodiversity and palaeovegetation, ca. 7–5 centuries before the arrival of Portuguese settlers to the Azores Islands. Here we pr...

Tracing insular woodiness in giant Daucus (s.l.) fruit fossils from the Early P...

Plants on oceanic islands can evolve insular syndromes such as secondary woodiness, a generalized trend found in island floras worldwide. This phenomenon occurs through evolution in situ. It is triggered by ecological and physiological stimuli that transform herbaceous annuals into woody perennials. However, well-dated and informative fossils that could help track and frame the evolution of this syndrome are la...

Eurya stigmosa (Theaceae), a new and extinct record for the Calabrian stage of ...

The general dynamic model of oceanic island biogeography (GDM) predicts the immigration, speciation and extinction of terrestrial biota through geological time on oceanic islands. Additionally, the glacial sensitive model of island biogeography (GSM) also predicts extinction due to eustatic and climate change within islands. However, well-documented and natural pre-Holocene plant extinctions are almost unknown ...

The first Ichneumonid fossil from the Early Pleistocene of Madeira Island (Port...

In oceanic islands, well age-constrained deposits containing arthropod somatofossils (body fossils) are rare. However, when available, these are important for providing empirical and independent minimum ages for molecular phy logenetic dating and complementary data on taxonomy, evolution and palaeobiogeography information of the biological groups found as fossils. This is especially important for taxa that spec...