Messinian vegetation and climate of the intermontane Florina-Ptolemais-Servia Basin, NW Greece: How well do plant fossils reflect past environments?

The late Miocene is marked by pronounced environmental changes and the appearance of strong temperature and precipitation seasonality. Although environmental heterogeneity is to be expected during this time, it is challenging to reconstruct palaeoenvironments using plant fossils. We investigated leaves and dispersed spores/pollen from 6.4–6 Ma strata in the intermontane Florina-Ptolemais-Servia Basin (FPS) of NW Greece. To assess how well plant fossils reflect the actual vegetation of the FPS, we assigned fossil-taxa to biomes providing a measure for environmental heterogeneity. Additionally, the palynological assemblage was compared to pollen spectra from modern lake sediments to assess biases in spore/pollen representation in the pollen record. We found a close match of the Vegora assemblage with modern Fagus–Abies forests of Turkey. Using taxonomic affinities of leaf fossils, we further established close similarities of the Vegora assemblage with modern laurophyllous oak forests of Afghanistan. Finally, using information from sedimentary environment and taphonomy, we distinguished local and distantly growing vegetation types. We then subjected the plant assemblage of Vegora to different methods of climate reconstruction and discussed their potentials and limitations. Leaf and spore/pollen records allow accurate reconstructions of palaeoenvironments in the FPS, whereas extra-regional vegetation from coastal lowlands is likely not captured.Funding provided by: VetenskapsrådetCrossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100004359Award Number: 2015-03986Funding provided by: The Scientific and Technological Research Council of TurkeyCrossref Funder Registry ID: Award Number: Funding provided by: The Scientific and Technological Research Council of TurkeyCrossref Funder Registry ID: Award Number: 1059B19170038