The Upper Cretaceous and Eocene floras of South Carolina and Georgia

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“…This also agrees with forest-climatic relations that existed during the later Cretaceous and early Tertiary, times when broadleafed evergreen forests with scattered deciduous hardwoods lived under frostless climate at middle latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere (Berry, 1916a(Berry, , 1916bDorf, 1942;Chaney, 1940;Krystofovich, 1955;MacGinitie, 1941;Brown, 1962). Since the nature of Jurassic-Cretaceous sedimentary rocks (red beds, salines) at lower middle latitudes in Holarctica (for distribution maps, see Schwarzbach, 1963, p. 161, andOpdyke, 1962, pp, 50-51) suggest wide belts of warm temperate climate with a dry season, the deciduous habit may have evolved under conditions of moderate drought marginal to these areas.…”

“…Furthermore, broadleafed evergreen forests were already highly adapted to these frostless climates of ample moisture and high cloudiness that appear to have differed but little (chiefly lower warmth) from the environments in which they evolved. These inferences are consistent with the nature of the Cretaceous and Tertiary floras in southern latitudes which show that broadleafed evergreen forests of subtropical aspect (tree ferns, palms, lianas, epiphytes) have continuously dominated that highly temperate region since they first appeared there in the Cretaceous (see paleobotanical papers and references in Adie, 1964;Couper, 1954;Berry, 1916a;1938-see references;Cranwell, 1959), only retreating to middle latitudes (New Zealand, Tasmania, southern Chile) late in the Tertiary as climate became colder and more intemperate.…”

“…This inference is consistent with evidence provided by Cretaceous and Tertiary floras preserved in regions now semiarid to desert, as in the western United States, northern Africa, southwest Asia, Australia, and Chile. They show gradual change in time which illustrates that as rainfall diminished and longer periods of drought developed, tropical to subtropical evergreen forests were replaced gradually by drier types of tropical vegetation, culminating in the present-day thorn forest and tropical desert (Axelrod, 1950 Betula, CercidiphyUum, Liquidambar, Liriodendron, Populus, Platanus, Quercus, Salix, Sassafras, Viburnum) first appeared in the record at middle latitudes near the close of the early Cretaceous (Lesquereux, 1892;Berry, 1914Berry, , 1916a. They were associated with broadleafed evergreens in regions (Kansas, Virginia, Portugal) characterized by frostless climate.…”

“…Thus the pattern of independent forest evolution in temperate boreal and austral regions continued on into the Cretaceous and Tertiary, and the forests of these lands still differ fundamentally in composition and also in their deciduous and evergreen habits. With respect to the virtual absence of deciduous hardwoods in mild to cold temperate austral lands, the forests of these regions live under a highly temperate climate (Schimper, 1903;Cockayne, 1928;Berry, 1914;especially Bailey, 1964). It is chiefly this factor, combined with ample rain well distributed through the year, that enables an evergreen rainforest with abundant Hanes, epiphytes, tree ferns, and palms to range nearly halfway down the west coast of South Island, New Zealand; closely similar forests occur also on the opposite side of the Tasman Sea, as well as in southern Chile.…”

Groundwater availability in the Crouch Branch and McQueen Branch aquifers, Chesterfield County, South Carolina, 1900-2012

“…A chapter devoted to the discussion of the geology and mineral resources of the State was included in the Handbook of South Carolina in 1908 (Sloan, 1908) and gives a description of the geology of the State, including Chesterfield County. Berry (1914) described plant fossils from the Upper Cretaceous sediments near Middendorf, Chesterfield County. Cooke (1936) comprehensively describes and illustrates the geology of the Atlantic Coastal Plain of South Carolina.…”