Ericales

Fletcher, T. L., Telka, A., Rybczynski, N. & Matthews, J. V., 2021, Neogene and early Pleistocene flora from Alaska, USA and Arctic / Subarctic Canada: New data, intercontinental comparisons and correlations, Palaeontologia Electronica (a 08) 24 (1), pp. 1-62 : 47-49

Ericales indet. p p

Andromeda +

Arctostaphylos +

is at about the same latitude as the Circle Gravels, Cone Bluff on the Porcupine River, Canyon Village in Alaska, and the Bluefish section in the northern Yukon. The two different floras from Bluefish (Unit A and B, 9a and 9b, respectively) are combined for purposes of the list in Table 3.

The Russian Khapchan floras listed in Table 3 are from the Omoly lowland on the north coast of Siberia. The fossils represent a combination of florules from one section plus those from one other section in the area (Biske, 1975). Farther north on the New Siberian Islands the Nerpichy Sequence is at approximately the same latitude as the Beaufort Formation flora (12a) from Prince Patrick Island. However, the Nerpichy macroflora is very small and not diagnostic, except that it does contain Epipremnum crassum , which Trufanov et al. (1979) believed shows that the deposits could not have formed at a time when permafrost existed in the region. They posit an age of late Oligocene to early Miocene, i.e., older than the Beaufort Formation or any of the other flora discussed here. We include Nerpichy in Table 2 because we believe it may be much younger.

Of all the floras listed in Table 3 only two are radiometrically dated (Lava Camp and Canyon Village). Both are of Clamgulchian age: Lava Camp (Flora 1) at about 5.9 Ma (Turner et al., 1980) and Canyon Village (5) at 6.4 Ma (Fouch et al., 1994; Kunk et al., 1994). The Erman terrestrial sequence from Siberia is interbedded with marine deposits providing independent evidence of its age (Gladenkov, 1979). All of the other floras in the table are apparently dated only by their content of plant fossils.

Several features of Table 3 need mention. First, even though the exact identity of the specimens identified as Paliurus in Appendix 1 and Table 3 is not yet known, it is clear from Dorofeev’s (1972) description and illustrations of the Khapchan fossils that what he called Paliurus is the same taxon identified here as Paliurus . Because this taxon occurs in so many of the North American assemblages, we expect it will eventually be discovered in other Mio-Pliocene floras from Russia. The taxon identified as Myrica (Gale) in the table is the same one (with long lateral lobes) seen at a number of North American florules and variously referred to as Myrica eogale or Myrica arctogale (herein).

Mid-Miocene Floras

Table 4 compares several Russian mid-Miocene floras, with the Homerian and Seldovian of the Cook Inlet Region (leaf floras; Wolfe et al., 1966) and the ‘seed’ floras from several of the Arctic North American sites discussed here and in Fyles et al. (1994). The Marenkanskiaya Suite ( Figure 1 ) is from the Magadan region. The Anadyr River flora represents the combined floras from the N. Pekul’neyveyem Suite. The Mamontova Gora flora is taken from the list of the middle beds at the classic locality on the Angara River ( Figure 1 ).

As stated above, the list in Table 4 deviates from the primary reference. For example, Aracites globosa is not found in any Russian list. It is a new combination proposed by Bennike (1990), and we believe likely applies to all of the fossils identified as Aracispermum or Aracites johnstruppi (e.g., Bůžek et al., 1985) in the Russian literature. Similarly, we consider Diclidocarya of Russian floras to be synonymous with Microdiptera / Mneme as used here. Pines identified as Pinus montezumae Lamb. are grouped with the Pinus (Pinus) ‘three-needle undiff.’ in the table. The Prunus padus L. type used in this and following tables refers to small, sculptured stones similar to those of the European bird cherry and includes the small sculptured Prunus stones that Matthews and Ovenden (1990) previously referred to P. maximowiczii Rupr.

Azolla occurs in only two of the floras, the Ballast Brook Formation and Mamantova Gora. Pseudotsuga also occurs in only two assemblages. The record from the Ballast Brook Formation is based on a few poorly preserved needles, but there is other evidence that Pseudotsuga grew in the High Arctic in the Paleogene (Obst et al., 1991) and that it survived until the Neogene (see Melville Island, above). Metasequoia occurs at almost all of the sites in the table; Picea does as well.

Figures

FIGURE 1. Distribution of sites and geographical features mentioned in the text. Siberian localities are from Baranova and Biske (1979). Shaded areas are shown in greater detail in Figures 2 and 4. Numbers refer to site codes used in Appendix 1 and throughout this paper.