On Wed, 5 Jul 2000 16:44:39 -0400 (EDT), Lion Kuntz wrote:
>This below is the Most False Deceptive and Misleading Statement I Have ever seen on SANET-MG. The
>implications of this statement are that somewhere between one million years ago and 12,000 years ago
>the entire Tropical Ecology suddenly mutated into existence, and did not have any prior existence.
>You are very explicit with the statement "post-glacial" phenomenon.
I stand by every word of it. My undergraduate degree is in geology, and
paleo-climatology is a longstanding interest of mine. What I said about
the Amazon rain forest has been known in one form or another for 30
years. For people that deal with this stuff professionally, what I said
is nothing new or radical. I guess it hasn't filtered down to the
environmental movement yet, perhaps because they don't want to hear it.
18,000 years ago, there was but a tiny snippet of tropical rain forest
in the Guyana-Suriname area. Most of the immediate Amazon basin was
savanna. Most of Brazil south and east of the Amazon was grassland.
There were several patches of extreme desert in the rain shadow of the
Andes. The Recife region, as well as the transitions into the extreme
desert were semi-desert.
By about 7,000 years ago the tropical rain forest had expanded
considerably, but there was still a significant percentage of savanna
in the region.
The only maps for which I could find a URL on short notice come from
the web version of the Global Atlas of Paleo-vegetation.
for 18,000 years ago --- http://www.soton.ac.uk/~tjms/sa18k.gif
for 5-8,000 years ago --- http://www.soton.ac.uk/~tjms/sa8_5.gif
Partial key to these maps ...
1 -- Tropical rain forest
2 -- Monsoon dry forest
3 -- Tropical savanna
4 -- Thorn scrub
5 -- Semi-desert
6 -- Grassland
7 -- Extreme desert
8 -- none
9 -- Savanna
10 - Temperate evergreens
11 - Temperate rain forest
(there are more, but these cover the Amazon basin)
>No matter how much intelligence you believe you have, the absurdity of your statement has
>illustrated deep flaws in your educations, which can be remedied by humility and application of
>generous amounts of time at quality libraries.
O golly, it causes a kerfuffle when sacred cows end up on the grill.
I suggest, on the other hand, that instead of flaming me you devote
your energy to some study yourself. You might wish to start with any or
all of the references below.
In the meantime, I won't hold your tirade against you.
Bart Hall
========
Absy M.L., Cleef A.M., Fournier M., Martin L., Servant M., Sifeddine
A., Ferriera M.F., Soubies F., Suguio K., Turcq B. & Van der Hammen T.
(1991) Mise
en ‚vidence de quatre phases d'ouverture de la forˆt dense dans le
sud-est de l'Amazonie au cours des 60,000 derniŠres ann‚es. PremiŠre
comparison
d'autres r‚gions tropicales. C.R. Acad. Sci. Paris t.312, S‚rie II
p.673-678
Absy M.L. & van der Hammen T. (1976), Some palaeoecological data from
Rondonia, southern part of the Amazon Basin. Acta Amazonica v.6
p.293-299.
Campbell K.E. (1989b). Late Pleistocene history of the Altiplano and
southwestern Amazonia and its bearing on faunal interchange. p.267-268.
Abstract;
5th International Theriological Congress. Rome.
Colinvaux P.A. (1987). Environmental history of the Amazon Basin.
Quaternary of South America and Antarctic Peninsula. v.5. A.A. Balkema,
Rotterdam,
Brookfield.
Colinvaux P., Bush M., Liu K-b, De Oliviera P., Steinitz-Kannan M.,
Reidinger M. & Miller M. (1989). Amazon without refugia: vegetation and
climate
change of the Amazon Basin through a glacial cycle. p.99-105 in; papers
of International Symposium on global changes in South America during
the
Quaternary. Sao Paulo, Brazil
Colinvaux P.A. (1993). History of the Amazon lowlands. p.255-301 in;
Biological relationships between Africa and South America. Ed;
Goldblatt P., Yale
University, USA.
De Oliveira P.E., Bush M.B., Miller M. & Colinvaux P.A. (1995). A
40,000 year record from the Amazonian lowland forest of Brazil.
Abstracts, 14th INQUA
Congress, Berlin.
van der Hammen T. & Absy M.L. (1994), Amazonia during the last Glacial.
Palaeogeogr., Palaeoclim., Palaeoecol. v.109 p.247-261.
Latrubesse E. M. & Rancy A. (1995). Late Quaternary alluvial sediments
and vertebrate palaeontology indicative of aridity in southwestern
Amazonia.
p.226, Abstracts 14th INQUA Congress, Berlin.
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