Journal
SEDIMENTARY GEOLOGY
Volume 363, Issue -, Pages 83-95Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
DOI: 10.1016/j.sedgeo.2017.11.001
Keywords
Paleoclimatology; Pedogenesis; Climofuntions; Pedogenic processes; Austral/Magallanes Basin; Cenomanian Santonian
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Funding
- Agencia Nacional de Promocion Cientifica y Tecnologica [PICT 2012-0828]
- Subsidio Jovenes Investigadores de la UNLP (La Plata University) [19333/2/13, 100]
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Although there is general consensus that a global greenhouse climate characterized the mid-Cretaceous, details of the climate state of the mid-Cretaceous Southern Hemisphere are less clearly understood. In particular, continental paleoclimate reconstructions are scarce and exclusively derived from paleontological records. Using paleosol-derived climofunction studies of the mid- to Upper Cretaceous Mata Amarilla Formation, southern Patagonia, Argentina, we present a reconstruction of the mid-Cretaceous climate of southern South America. Our results indicate that at similar to 60 degrees south paleolatitude during the Cenomanian-Santonian stages, the climate was subtropical temperate-warm (12 degrees C +/- 2.1 degrees C) and humid (1404 +/- 108 mm/yr) with marked rainfall seasonality. These results are consistent with both previous estimations from the fossil floras of the Mata Amarilla Formation and other units of the Southern Hemisphere, and with the previous observations of the displacement of tropical and subtropical floras towards the poles in both hemispheres. The data presented here show a more marked seasonality and slightly lower mean annual precipitation and mean annual temperature values than those recorded at the same paleolatitudes in the Northern Hemisphere. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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