Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 July 2017
Studies of Tertiary plant megafossils typically have aimed at gathering paleoclimatologic and/or biogeographic data. The apparent similarities of Tertiary fossil plants to extant plants have made tempting the use of present plant/climatic relations to infer past climates. Additionally, plant-bearing, nonmarine deposits of Tertiary age are more widespread than older deposits, which allows stratigraphic and geographic distributions of Tertiary plants to be determined with greater accuracy than for older plants.