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Meyer Desert Formation biota

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The Meyer Desert Formation biota is a biota (flora and fauna) found in the Dominion Range in the Transantarctic Mountains in Antarctica, alongside the Beardmore Glacier.

Since about 15 Ma, Antarctica has been mostly covered with ice.

Fossil Nothofagus leaves in the Meyer Desert Formation of the Sirius Group show that intermittent warm periods allowed Nothofagus shrubs to cling to the Dominion Range as late as 3–4 Ma (mid-late Pliocene). After that the Pleistocene ice-age covered the whole continent and destroyed all major plant life on it.

Species reported by Ashworth and Cantrill from about 3 million years ago include:

Animals:

  • Pisidium species (very small or minute freshwater clams, Sphaeriidae)
  • A lymnaeid gastropod (air-breathing freshwater snails)
  • 2 species of curculionid beetles (weevils)
  • A cyclorraphid fly (Diptera)

    • Plants:

  • Nothofagus beardmorensis (Fagales)
  • Ranunculus or similar achenes (Ranunculaceae?)
  • Mosses (apparently 5 types)
  • Pollen, mostly Nothofagus
  • Coniferous bisaccate pollen grains, perhaps Podocarpidites
  • Pollen of Tricolpites
  • Flowering cushion plants
  • A seed of Hippuris (mare's tails: Plantaginaceae)
  • A seed of Cyperaceae (sedges)
  • 3 or more types of liverworts

    • References

    Meyer Desert Formation biota Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA