Re-uniting lost continents - Fossil reptiles from the ancient Karoo and their wanderlust
Re-uniting lost continents - Fossil reptiles from the ancient Karoo and their wanderlust
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DOI：
10.2113/108.1.135
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发表时间：
2005-03-01
影响因子：
1.8
通讯作者：
Rubidge, BS
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Rubidge, BS
来自南非的化石发现极大地扩展了对地球上生命发展的认识。特别是，覆盖了从二叠纪到侏罗纪的近1亿年时间的Karoo的巨大古生物财富，加强了对包括哺乳动物和恐龙在内的重要四足动物谱系进化的了解。这些化石提供了大陆二叠纪至侏罗纪动物群生物多样性的最新记录，对于研究全球二叠纪-三叠纪大陆大灭绝以及洞察其他灭绝事件至关重要。最近，通过跨学科协作，对Karoo化石的地层和地理分布模式的研究提高了从二叠纪到侏罗纪的生物地层分辨率和脊椎动物群的全球对比。这反过来又使人们更好地了解了盘古大陆的生物多样性，以及早期四足动物进化谱系的起源和最初的多样性。其中许多起源于贡德瓦南超大陆的南部非洲部分。古生物学和沉积学的结合导致了新的盆地发育模式，并解决了各学科孤立可能实现的问题。
Fossil discoveries from South Africa have greatly expanded knowledge of the development of life on Earth. In particular, the enormous palaeontological wealth of the Karoo, covering a period of almost 100 million years from the Permian to the Jurassic, has enhanced understanding of the evolution of important tetrapod lineages, including mammals and dinosaurs. These fossils provide the hest record of continental Permian to Jurassic faunal biodiversity, and have been crucial to studies of the global Permo-Triassic mass extinction in the continental realm, as well as giving insight into other extinction events. Recent collaborative interdisciplinary, studies of stratigraphic and geographic distribution patterns of Karoo fossils have enhanced biostratigraphic resolution and global correlation of vertebrate faunas from the Permian to the Jurassic. This in turn has led to a better understanding of the biodiversity across Pangaea, and the places of origin and initial diversity of early tetrapod evolutionary lineages. Many of these originated in the Southern African portion of the Gondwanan super-continent. The combination of palaeontological and sedimentological studies has led to new basin development models and solved problems which each discipline in isolation could riot have achieved.