PoLAR-FIT: PliOcene Landscapes and Arctic Remains - Frozen In Time
Fossil leaves at the Fyles Leaf Beds site Ellesmere Island, Nunavut. 2008. (Photo credit: Martin Lipman)
Across the Canadian Arctic Archipelago 2 -4 million year-old fossil-rich deposits yield evidence of a time when the arctic region was forested and inhabited by diverse animals including beavers, frogs, three toed horses, and giant camels. The fossils are of exceptional quality – being essentially mummified. These fossils and their associated sedimentary deposits provide key evidence for understanding how biological and Earth system processes respond and influence Arctic warming.
Pliocene Landscapes and Arctic Remains Frozen In Time (PoLAR-FIT) is an international multidisciplinary research network, formalized and expanded in 2015, that is focused on these Pliocene Arctic sites. The team includes researchers from multiple disciplines including paleoclimatology, geomorphology, geochronology, biogeochemistry, dendroclimatology, floral and faunal paleontology, evolutionary biology, landscape ecology and geogenetics. I led expeditions to these sites for multiple years.
REFERENCES
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Ballantyne, A.P., D.R. Greenwood, J.S. Sinninghe Damsté, A.Z. Csank, J.J. Eberle & N. Rybczynski. 2010. Significantly warmer Arctic surface temperatures during the Pliocene indicated by multiple independent proxies. Geology. 38(7): 603-606. DOI: 10.1130/G30815.1
Ballantyne, A.P., N. Rybczynski, P. Baker, C.R. Harington & D. White. 2006. Pliocene Arctic temperature constraints from the growth rings and isotopic composition of fossil larch wood. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. 242 (3,4): 188-200. DOI: 10.1016/j.palaeo.2006.05.016
Barendregt, R,W, J.V. Matthews, Jr., V. Behan-Pelletier, J. Brigham-Grette, J.G. Fyles, L.E. Ovenden, D.H. McNeil, E. Brouwers, L. Marincovich, N. Rybczynski, and T.L. Fletcher. 2021. Biostratigraphy, age, and the paleoenvironment of the Pliocene Beaufort Formation on Meighen Island, Canadian Arctic Archipelago. GSA Special Paper. 551. 1-39. DOI: 10.1130/2021.2551(01)
Buckley, M., C. Lawless, N. Rybczynski. 2019. Collagen sequence analysis of fossil camels, Camelops and c.f. Paracamelus, from the Arctic and sub-Arctic of Plio-Pleistocene North America. Journal of Proteomics. 194:218-225. DOI: 10.1016/j.jprot.2018.11.014
Carter, L. D., D. Christensen. D. M. Hopkins, J.V. Matthews Jr, R.E. Nelson, L.E. Ovenden, N. Rybczynski & T.L. Fletcher. 2024. Stratigraphy and paleontology (plant and arthropod fossils) from the Late Neogene Niguanak site, Arctic Slope, Northern Alaska, Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research, 56:1, 2407714, DOI: 10.1080/15230430.2024.2407714
Csank, A.Z., W.P. Patterson, B.M. Eglington, N. Rybczynski, & J.F. Basinger. 2011. Climate variability in the Early Pliocene Arctic: Annually resolved evidence from stable isotope values of sub-fossil wood, Ellesmere Island, Canada. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. 308: 339-349. DOI: 10.1016/j.palaeo.2011.05.038.
Csank, A.Z., A. Tripati, W.P. Patterson, R.A. Eagle, N. Rybczynski, A.P. Ballantyne & J. Eiler. 2011. Estimates of Arctic land surface temperatures during the early Pliocene from two novel proxies. Earth and Planetary Science Letters. 304(3-4): 291-299. DOI: 10.1016/j.epsl.2011.02.030
Davies, N.S., J.C. Gosse, A. Rouillard, N. Rybczynski, J. Meng, A.V. Reyes and J. Kiguktak. 2022. Wood Jams or beaver dams? Pliocene life sediment and landscape interactions in the Canadian High Arctic. Palaios, 37: 1-18. DOI: 10.2110/palo.2021.065.
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Davies, N.S., J. C. Gosse & N. Rybczynski. 2014. Cross-bedded woody debris from Pliocene forested river system in the High Arctic: Beaufort formation, Meighen Island, Canada. Journal of Sedimentary Research. Journal of Sedimentary Research. 84: 19–25. DOI: 10.2110/jsr.2014.5
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Fletcher, T.L., A. Telka, N. Rybczynski, and J.V. Matthews, Jr. 2021. Neogene and early Pleistocene flora from Alaska, USA and Arctic/Subarctic Canada: New data, intercontinental comparisons and correlations. Palaeontologia Electronica. 24(1):a08. DOI: 10.26879/1121.
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Fraser, D., C. Hassall, R. Gorelick, & N. Rybczynski. 2014. Mean Annual precipitation explains spatiotemporal patterns of mammal beta diversity and latitudinal diversity gradients in North America. PLoS ONE. 9(9): 1 -10. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0106499
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Fletcher, T.L, L. Warden, J.S. Sinninghe Damsté, K.J. Brown, N. Rybczynski, J.C. Gosse, A.P. Ballantyne. 2019. Evidence for fire in the Pliocene Arctic in response to amplified temperature. Climate of the Past. 15:1063-1081. DOI: 10.5194/cp-15-1063-2019
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Gosse, J.C., A.P. Ballantyne, J.D. Barker, A.Z. Csank, T.L. Fletcher, G.W. Grant, D.R. Greenwood, R.D.E. MacPhee and N. Rybczynski. 2017. PoLAR-FIT: Pliocene Landscapes and Arctic Remains—Frozen in Time. Geoscience Canada. 44: 47–54. DOI: 10.12789/geocanj.2017.44.116.
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Mitchell, W.T., N. Rybczynski, C. Schröder-Adams, P.B. Hamilton, R. Smith & M. Douglas. 2016. Stratigraphic and paleoenvironmental reconstruction of a Mid-Pliocene fossil site in the High Arctic (Ellesmere Island, NU): Evidence of an ancient peatland with beaver activity. Arctic, 69 (2): 185 - 204. DOI: 10.14430/arctic4567
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Murray, A.M., S.L. Cumbaa, C.R. Harington, G.R. Smith & N. Rybczynski. 2009. Early Pliocene fish remains from Arctic Canada support a pre-Pleistocene dispersal of percids (Teleostei: Perciformes). Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 46: 557-570. DOI: 10.1139/E09-037.
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Plint, T., F.J. Longstaffe, F.J., A. Ballantyne, A. Telka, N. Rybczynski. 2020. Evolution of woodcutting behaviour in Early Pliocene beaver driven by consumption of woody plants. Scientific Reports. 10, 13111. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-70164-1
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Rybczynski, N. 2007. Castorid phylogenetics: Implications for the evolution of swimming and tree exploitation in beavers. Journal of Mammalian Evolution. 14: 1-35. DOI: 10.1007/s10914-006-9017-3
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Rybczynski, N. 2008. Woodcutting behavior in beavers (Castoridae, Rodentia): estimating ecological performance in a modern and a fossil taxon. Palaeobiology 34(3): 389-402. DOI: 10.1666/06085.1
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Rybczynski, N., J.C. Gosse, C.R. Harington, R.A. Wogelius, A.J. Hidy, and M. Buckley. 2013. Mid-Pliocene warm-period deposits in the High Arctic yield insight into camel evolution. Nature Communications. 4:1550. DOI: 10.1038/ncomms2516.
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Wang, X., N. Rybczynski, C. R. Harington, S. C. White, R. H. Tedford. 2017. An Abstruse Species Revealed: A Pliocene Bear with Dental Caries from the Canadian High Arctic. Scientific Reports: 1-14. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-17657-8
Sampling peat at the Beaver Pond fossil site Ellesmere Island, Nunavut. 2008. (Photo credit: Martin Lipman)
Larch cone (~4 MA) in situ, at the Beaver Pond fossil site Ellesmere Island, Nunavut. 2008. (Photo credit: Martin Lipman)
Coring project at the Fyles Leaf bed site Ellesmere Island, Nunavut. 2019. (Photo credit: Natalia Rybczynski)
Protarctos abstrusus (~4 MA), an extinct bear, from the Beaver Pond fossil site Ellesmere Island, Nunavut. (Source: Wang et al, 2017)
My mentor, Dick Harington, at the Beaver Pond fossil site (Ellesmere Island, Nunavut). He worked at the Beaver Pond site, 1988, 1992 - 2001. (Photo credit: Martin Lipman)
Working at the Fyles Leaf Beds site on Ellesmere Island, Nunavut. (Photo credit: Martin Lipman)
Pliocene woody debris. ~80 degrees North. Meighen Island, Nunavut. 2010. (Photo credit: N. Rybczynski)
Meighen Island , Nunavut.2010 (Photo credit: N. Rybczynski)
