Re: No Cretaceous rainforests?

[Donna Braginetz <quailspg@frii.com>]

LIST MEMBERS -

The current discussion seems to turn on the definition of 
"rainforest." I sent two quick questions to Kirk Johnson. 
Questions and responses are below.

- DONNA BRAGINETZ

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1) Are you saying there were no rainforests during the Mesozoic?

In my reading of the literature, I have found no convincing 
evidence that species-rich angiosperm-dominanted rainforests 
existed in the Mesozoic. They may have been there but nobody has 
documented them and I am beginning to believe they weren't there 
until the Paleocene.

2) Or are you limiting "rainforest" to a warm, wet,
high-diversity, mostly angiosperm community?

That's essentially correct. I am using tropical rainforest in 
essentially the modern sense. That having been said, no one has 
described, with any precision, tropical everwet Mesozoic 
communities that grew in conditions that would today support a 
tropical rainforest.