OVERVIEW :
The database was
produced with the principal goal of conducting research on how major
disruptions to the physical environment affected species richness, evolutionary
patterns, and biogeographic patterns in mammals from approximately 30
million to 5 million years ago (Arikareean through Hemphillian Land-Mammal
Ages). Environmental disruptions of interest include middle Miocene
tectonism in the northern Rocky Mountains and Great Basin, and climatic
warming events of the late Oligocene and mid-Miocene. MIOMAP researchers
are exploring the effects of such disruptions on various features of
mammal communities, as well as developing ways to compensate for the
many biases inherent in analyzing fossil data.
