The Riversleigh Excavation
The Riversleigh excavation site provides views of life in Australia at chronologically different periods. These different periods are what lead Australia to its unique environment and habitats of today. This modern appearance developed in the Eocene time. The initial conditions of the early Paleocene and Eocene periods the land masses where experiencing tropical weather conditions. Lush vibrant rainforest developed in these conditions. Comparisons between leaves characteristics can be viewed at Maslin bay here leafs from the Eocene period are similar to modern notophyll forests. However, Eocene leaves still retained a distinctive quality because of Nothofagus and conifers.
The continents of Australia and South America were still coupled by way of Antarctica. Through this positioning it was possible for rainforests to extend between the continents. Routes were established due to the connections; however, there were sporadic breaks in the route. The breaks were cause by archipelagos and etc. Finally the eastern part was closed when Australia separated somewhere between 45 and 38 million years ago.
However, the continents of Australia and Antarctica separating brought previously isolated types of forests that included numerous types of trees, including Nothofagus. The fact that it was commonly associated with South America accounts for some similarities with forests of today in Tasmania. Discoveries of various fossilized animals also suggest the once connection of the continents.
Since the separation of Australia it has been heading in a northern direction. This northern movement is about 11 cm each year. Thus, around 25 million years ago the continent was actually ten deg...
... middle of paper ...
...s probably first entered Australia from south eastern Asia more than 30 million years ago." There is no relating evidence of Asian taxa within Australian plants since the last 15 million years. Thus, they had already invaded before the collisions. Ice sheets lead to a increase destruction of Rainforest. Now, pockets and patches of forest were left. The remaining forests were just basic enough to preserve examples of archaic rainforest groups.
The devastated rainforests were replaced by alternating forests of wet and dry types. Variation in the world's climate proved difficult for animals trying to pass back and forth. Now, grasslands and woodlands followed which led to kangaroos beginning to diversify. Australia was not effected glaciations during the Pleistocene Epoch (ice age). Nonetheless, it had a impact on the development of Australia's biota.
Lithologically the Kimmeridge Clay Formation can be subdivided into four units (Figure 2), despite of beds at the base of the succession are poorly exposed. However, in contrast, the units from mid-eudoxus Zone to the top of the formation that are well seen in the Formation. At the base of the formation until the eudoxus Zone, the strata are made up almost entirely of bioturbated shelly clays and in between beds, horizons of oil and bituminous are present. The upper part of the Eudoxus Zone until the upper Pectinatus Zone the composition is kerogen-rich mudstones and coccolith limestone.
The ginkgo tree appeared on earth approximately 230 million years ago, which was before dinosaurs evolved. They were referred to as 'living fossils' by Charles Darwin. These trees are so hardy that one of them lived through the atomic blast that destroyed Hiroshima (Anonymous No. 2, 1997). This tree is one of the earth's two oldest trees, The members of the Ginkgoacae family grew in parts of what are now Australia, the British Isles, Greenland, China, Russia, northern Europe, Japan, South America, Africa, and in the United States during the Mesozoic Era. It later retreated to a small area in eastern China with the changes in the world climate. It is the only surviving tree of the ginkgo family (Corrigan, 1997).
While digging in the far reaches of the African outback, now know as the western part of Kenya, archaeologist Bozo excavated a site that revolutionized the thoughts of the scientific world. At this site they found many interesting artifacts and paintings that included proof of an early civilization. At this time scientists are calling this civilization “Pontu” after one of the paintings suggested that a pontoon was used for transportation across Lake Victoria, one of the adjacent lakes.
...adal time scales. Its ecosystems “contain a large proportion of endemic (solely Australian) species, reflecting their long evolutionary history and isolation from other landmasses”—except during the last glacial period (www.greenhouse.gov.au/science/guide/pubs/chapter1.pdf). While its population of 20 million is still concentrated on the continent’s coast, this is a different coastline than that on which early settlers made homes for themselves 40,000 years ago; moreover, since the period of British colonization, it is a different population too.
The Pleistocene epoch is a well-known time period thanks to the glorification of now extinct megafauna as well as the proximity to our current epoch. Through the rapid climate changes and glaciation that occurred many times during this epoch, the fauna
Millions and millions of years ago the continents lay together as one super-continent known as Pangea. As time went on and the plates underneath the Earth began to separate, the continents land moved towards the poles where glaciation occurred. Glaciation is the process in which glaciers were formed during the ice age. Glaciation causes a drop in temperature which in turn causes water to freeze and form many layers of ice (http://palaeo.gly.bris.ac.uk/Palaeofiles/Permian/intro.html, 1). Due to this layering of ice that has occurred at both poles it has not been easy to discover new dinosaur fossils. However, in a press release of the National Science Foundation researchers, working in two distinct sites of Antarctica found what seem to be fossil remains of two different dinosaurs that had previously never been introduced to the world of science (http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/newsroom/pr.cfm?ni=52, 1).
In the article by Lee Berger and his team titled ‘Australopithecus sediba: A New Species of Homo-Like Australopith from South Africa’ they describe the analysis of the newly found fossil.
For our first international expansion, we will be focusing on the Australian market. As a brief historical recap, the first to settle on the continent came from Southeast Asian over 40,000 years before the first Europeans. In 1770, Great Britain laid claim to the eastern coastline of Australia through the exploration of Captain James Cook. After fast forwarding 131 years, the six established colonies joined together in 1901 to become Australia as it is known today.
Tropical rainforests which is located between tropic of Capricorn and tropic of Cancer covered 12% of land surface few thousand years ago. However, today they o...
Do you ever wonder about the different species of animals that live in a region far from you? Or, Do you ever wonder how they are able to survive? There are many organisms in Australia that have learned to adapt to their environment and been able to triumph from it. All organisms adapt to where it lives in various ways. Australian animals such as the platypus, kangaroo, and cane toad each have adapted to its environment in an assortment of ways.
About 50,000 years in the past Australia was founded by a group of Aboringal people then later again by others. “Each group formed a unique societies and relationships with the land, and each played a vital part in shaping the history of Australia. (Smith)” The name Australia originally came from the Latin root word “australis”. “Australia is the last of lands only in the sense that it was the last continent, apart from Antarctica, to be explored by Europeans (Twidale)” By the time Europeans had arrived the Aboringal people had already changed the landscape to fit their hunter gatherer needs.
Lack of rainfall is affecting the growth of trees, the amount of water received by the city of Perth, and the number of wildfires. The Jarrah karri region of Australia is drying out due to global warming. The rainfall has decreased around 15-20 percent since 1970 (Wardell-Johnson). Because of this, Bunbury says that the Jarrah karri region is a good example “for understanding what climate change impacts may mean in the future.” Many other areas in the world have a Mediterranean climate similar to the Jarrah forests and so by understanding what is happening to the Jarrah forests, researchers hope to change the future of other Mediterranean areas (Bunbury). One of the reasons that this part of Australia is suffering so much is that it has been in a “human-triggered climate
Weather and climate are immensely influential forces in every society, and central Australia demonstrates this nicely. Throughout history, the influence of weather has been evident. The aborigines, European settlers and modern Australians all had or have to negotiate the impacts of weather in their daily lives. The respective cultures of the aborigines and the Europeans are products of weather and worked together to create modern society in Australia. The modern culture has been produced by a combination of cultural and climatic forces and has changed over time as the different groups within it influenced each other. The cultural aspects that I will focus on in this paper are food and clothing. Both have been carefully shaped by cultural and climatic aspects over time, and demonstrate how the aborigines and European settlers influenced each other.
For thousands of years aboriginals have constantly adapted and co-evolved to sustain life in the harsh Australian environment. One of the most important aspects of understanding
The high altitude peaks and plateaus, glacial lakes and alpine and sub-alpine ecosystems of the Australian Alps are rare in the mostly flat, dry and hot continent. They contain the highest peaks in the Great Dividing Range. The Alps are of outstanding landscape significance and are important in the pattern of Australia’s natural history. The Kosciuszko Plateau includes the most striking examples on the Australian mainland of landforms created by glaciers. The Alps are home to unique cold climate plants and animals.