Paleofloristics Data for the Study of Global Change and Biotic Extinctions

来自落基山脉南部的被子植物叶大化石 进行调查，以确定属和家族多样性的模式 在植物组合中， (66百万年B.P.），五大灭绝事件之一 生命史上最重要的时刻 尽管对花粉的物种水平分析 和叶组合阐明了气候和 生态环境发生了变化，植物的许多生物学特性 灭绝无法准确确定，因为叶子 必须通过详细分析叶片来确定巨化石。 脉络和表皮解剖保存完好的遗骸， 与现存的参考文献进行广泛的比较， 被子植物的叶子。 该分析将提供更可靠的 系统关系的确定比目前 白垩纪晚期和第三纪早期的古植物群， 有严格的地层年龄控制。 这些 系统的测定将为今后的研究提供数据基础。 白垩纪末植物灭绝的定量分析， 将是重要的测试假说的性质生物 灭绝

Angiosperm leaf megafossils from the southern Rocky Mountains will be surveyed to determine patterns of generic and familial diversity in floral assemblages bracketing the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary (66 million years b.p.), one of the five major extinction episodes in the history of life. Although species-level analyses of pollen and leaf assemblages have elucidated many details of climatic and ecological change at this time, many biological properties of plant extinction cannot be determined accurately, because leaf megafossils must be determined through detailed analysis of foliar venation and cuticular anatomy in well-preserved remains and extensive comparisons with reference collections of extant angiosperm leaves. This analysis will provide more reliable determinations of systematic relationships than are currently available for latest Cretaceous and earliest Tertiary paleofloras, in assemblages that have tight stratigraphic age control. These systematic determinations will provide a data base for future quantitative analysis of end-Cretaceous plant extinction, which will be important for testing hypotheses on the nature of biotic extinction.