Articles | Volume 12, issue 2
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-12-241-2016
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-12-241-2016
Research article
 | 
10 Feb 2016
Research article |  | 10 Feb 2016

Estimates of late middle Eocene pCO2 based on stomatal density of modern and fossil Nageia leaves

X. Y. Liu, Q. Gao, M. Han, and J. H. Jin

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Cited articles

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Beerling, D. J., and Kelly, C. K.: Stomatal density responses of temperate woodland plants over the past seven decades of CO2 increase: A comparison of salisbury (1927) with contemporary data, Am. J. Bot., 84, 1572–1583, 1997.
Beerling, D. J. and Royer, D. L.: Reading a CO2 signal from fossil stomata, New Phytol., 153, 387–397, https://doi.org/10.1046/j.0028-646X.2001.00335.x, 2002.
Beerling, D. J. and Royer, D. L.: Convergent Cenozoic CO2 history, Nat. Geosci., 4, 418–420, https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1186, 2011.
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We reconstruct late middle Eocene (42.0–38.5 Ma) pCO2 based on the fossil leaves of Nageia maomingensis Jin et Liu collected from the Maoming Basin, Guangdong Province, China. This work indicates that the stomatal density (SD) inversely responds to pCO2, while stomatal index (SI) has almost no relationship with pCO2, using "modern" leaves of N. motleyi (Parl.) De Laub. Regression approach gives a pCO2 of 351.9 ± 6.6 ppmv, whereas stomatal ratio method gives a pCO2 of 537.5 ± 56.5 ppmv.