What was the vegetation in northwest Australia during the Paleogene, 66–23 million years ago?
Michael K. Macphail A C and Robert S. Hill B
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A Department of Archaeology and Natural History, College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia.
B School of Biological Sciences and Environment Institute, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA 50005, Australia.
C Corresponding author. Email: mike.macphail@anu.edu.au
Australian Journal of Botany 66(7) 556-574 https://doi.org/10.1071/BT18143
Submitted: 19 July 2018 Accepted: 25 October 2018 Published: 14 December 2018
Abstract
Fossil pollen and spores preserved in drillcore from both the upper South Alligator River (SARV) in the Kakadu National Park, Northern Territory and the North-West Shelf, Western Australia provide the first record of plants and plant communities occupying the coast and adjacent hinterland in north-west Australia during the Paleogene 66 to 23 million years ago. The palynologically-dominant woody taxon is Casuarinaceae, a family now comprising four genera of evergreen scleromorphic shrubs and trees native to Australia, New Guinea, South-east Asia and Pacific Islands. Rare taxa include genera now mostly restricted to temperate rainforest in New Guinea, New Caledonia, New Zealand, South-East Asia and/or Tasmania, e.g. Dacrydium, Phyllocladus and the Nothofagus subgenera Brassospora and Fuscospora. These appear to have existed in moist gorges on the Arnhem Land Plateau, Kakadu National Park. No evidence for Laurasian rainforest elements was found. The few taxa that have modern tropical affinities occur in Eocene or older sediments in Australia, e.g. Lygodium, Anacolosa, Elaeagnus, Malpighiaceae and Strasburgeriaceae. We conclude the wind-pollinated Oligocene to possibly Early Miocene vegetation in the upper SARV was Casuarinaceae sclerophyll forest or woodland growing under seasonally dry conditions and related to modern Allocasuarina/Casuarina formations. There are, however, strong floristic links to coastal communities growing under warm to hot, and seasonally to uniformly wet climates in north-west Australia during the Paleocene-Eocene.
Additional keywords: Arnhem Land Plateau, dry rainforest, Early Miocene, Eocene, Oligocene, Paleocene, palynostratigraphy.
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