Evidence of a Greenhouse Climate During the Visean-Serpukhovian in the Midst of the Carboniferous Ice Ages

A greenhouse interval between icehouse times: Climate change, long-distance plant dispersal, and plate motion in the Mississippian (late Visean-earliest Serpukhovian) of Gondwana

Authors:

Hermann W. Pfefferkorn, Vera Alleman and Roberto Iannuzzi

Abstract:

The late Paleozoic ice age (LPIA) is the closest example that can be compared with current climate conditions. Near the beginning of the LPIA fossil plants of Mississippian (late Visean to earliest Serpukhovian) age indicate a widespread frost-free climate in a wide belt on Gondwana indicating an interval of greenhouse conditions between the earlier Visean and later Serpukhovian icehouse times. This warm-temperate floral belt has been named the Paraca floral belt after the locality on the Peruvian coast where it was first recognized. The origin of this particular zono-biome was due to the interplay of (1) climate oscillations, (2) several kinds of long-distance plant dispersal within, between or through zono-biomes, and (3) plate motion. The Carboniferous age strata on the Paracas Peninsula in Peru serve as an example for an analysis of these large scale patterns through the analysis of local geology, paleobotany, and paleoecology. The processes observed during this time interval can serve as a model for long-distance plant dispersal at other times.