Temperate rainforests near the South Pole during peak Cretaceous warmth

• The mid-Cretaceous period was one of the warmest intervals of the past 140millionyears1–5, driven by atmospheric carbon dioxide levels of around 1,000parts per million by volume6. In the near absence of proximal geological records from south of the Antarctic Circle, it is disputed whether polar ice could exist under such environmental conditions. Here we use a sedimentary sequence recovered from the West Antarctic shelf—the southernmost Cretaceous record reported so far—and show that a temperate lowland rainforest environment existed at a palaeolatitude of about 82°S during the Turonian–Santonian age (92 to 83millionyearsago). This record contains an intact 3-metre-long network of in situ fossil roots embedded in a mudstone matrix containing diverse pollen and spores. A climate model simulation shows that the reconstructed temperate climate at this high latitude requires a combination of both atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations of 1,120–1,680parts per million by volume and a vegetated land surface without major Antarctic glaciation, highlighting the important cooling effect exerted by ice albedo under high levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. © 2020, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Biologi -- Ekologi (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Biological Sciences -- Ecology (hsv//eng)

Keyword

carbon dioxide

albedo

climate modeling

Cretaceous

mudstone

paleolatitude

rainforest

sedimentary sequence

Antarctica

Article

atmosphere

climate

fossil plant

fossil spore

glaciation

heat

latitude

nonhuman

paleoenvironment

pollen

priority journal

sediment

temperate rain forest

vegetation

East Antarctica

South Pole

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)