Does deep-time climate change predict the future of tropical forests?

In response to elevated atmospheric carbon and temperature, the world's oldest fossilized tropical forests increased their biomass and species diversity. The fossil record shows that today's plants probably have the genetic capacity to acclimatize to climate change.

Why are there so many species in the tropics? How is the latitudinal diversity gradient explained?

An old question that still does not have a clear answer. The answer, nevertheless, requires the fossil record.

Can we develop new techniques to analyze biostratigraphic data? How can we use fossils to find natural resources such as oil, coal, gas and water?

The exploration of groundwater, oil, gas, coal and many other minerals requires of good stratigraphic correlations and an understanding of depositional environments. Fossils are very useful tools for geologists to solve those problems.

University of Florida 1999 Ph.D. Geology, Botany

University of Missouri-Rolla 1995 M.S. Geology

Universidad Nacional de Colombia 1992 Geology

Jaramillo, C., 2016, Evolution of the Isthmus of Panama: biological, paleoceanographic, and paleoclimatological implications, in Hoorn, C., and Antonelli, A., eds., Mountains, Climate and Biodiversity: Oxford, John Wiley & Sons.

Jaramillo, C., and Cardenas, A. 2013. Global Warming and Neotropical Rainforests: A historical perspective. Annual Reviews of Earth and Planetary Sciences 41: 741-766.

Jaramillo, C. 2012. Historia Geológica del Bosque Húmedo Neotropical. Revista de la Academia Colombiana de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales 36: 59-80.

Jaramillo, C., Rueda, M., and Torres, V. 2011. A Palynological Zonation for the Cenozoic of the Llanos and Llanos Foothills of Colombia. Palynology 35: 46-84.

Jaramillo, C., et al. 2010. Effects of Rapid Global Warming at the Paleocene-Eocene Boundary on Neotropical Vegetation: Science 330: 957-961.

Jaramillo, C., Hoorn, C., Silva, S., Leite, F., Herrera, F., Quiroz, L., Dino, R., and Antonioli, L. 2010. The origin of the modern Amazon rainforest: implications from the palynological and paleobotanical record. In: Hoorn, M.C. and Wesselingh, F.P. (Eds.) Amazonia, Landscape and Species Evolution. Blackwell, Oxford: 317-334.

Jaramillo, C., Rueda, M. and Mora, G. 2006. Cenozoic Plant Diversity in the Neotropics. Science, 311: 1893-1896.

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