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Did Ground Cover Change Over Geologic Time?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2017

Ben A. LePage  and
Hermann W. Pfefferkorn
Ben A. LePage
Affiliation:
Department of Earth and Environmental Science, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 19104–6316 USA
Hermann W. Pfefferkorn
Affiliation:
Department of Earth and Environmental Science, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 19104–6316 USA
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Extract

When one hears the term “ground cover,” one immediately thinks of “grasses.” This perception is so deep-seated that paleobotanists even have been overheard to proclaim that “there was no ground cover before grasses.” Today grasses are so predominant in many environments that this perception is perpetuated easily. On the other hand, it is difficult to imagine the absence or lack of ground cover prior to the mid-Tertiary. We tested the hypothesis that different forms of ground cover existed in the past against examples from the Recent and the fossil record (Table 1). The Recent data were obtained from a large number of sources including those in the ecological, horticultural, and microbiological literature. Other data were derived from our knowledge of Precambrian life, sedimentology and paleosols, and the plant fossil record, especially in situ floras and fossil “monocultures.” Some of the data are original observations, but many others are from the literature. A detailed account of these results will be presented elsewhere (Pfefferkorn and LePage, in preparation).

Type
Research Article
Information
The Paleontological Society Papers , Volume 6: Phanerozoic Terrestrial Ecosystems , November 2000 , pp. 171 - 182
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 by the Paleontological Society 

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