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Holocene Flooding and Species Diversity in Southwestern Amazonia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Kenneth E. Campbell Jr.  and
David Frailey
Kenneth E. Campbell Jr.
Affiliation:
Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, 900 Exposition Boulevard, Los Angeles, California 90007
David Frailey
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, Midland College, Midland, Texas 79701
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Abstract

A thick blanket of Holocene alluvium lies over southwestern lowland Amazonia, and may possibly occur throughout much of the Amazon Basin. These deposits resulted from massive, seasonal flooding from about 11,000 to about 5000 yr B.P. that was followed by two cycles of erosion and deposition. Interpretations based on these geologic data suggest that southwestern lowland Amazonia is ecologically an “island” in a state of supersaturated disequilibrium as a result of colonization from Pleistocene refugia on its perimeter, and that habitats of highest diversity may be the most recent in origin. Conservation efforts and studies of Amazonian biogeography, soils, and paleoethnography should be reevaluated in light of the geologic data.

Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 21 , Issue 3 , May 1984 , pp. 369 - 375
Copyright
University of Washington

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