Anatolia (Türkiye) during the late Eocene and the Eocene–Oligocene Transition: successive warming and cooling, aridification, and implications for the westward dispersal of Asian terrestrial mammals

Botté, Paul; Licht, Alexis; Jourdan, Anne-Lise; Montheil, Leny; Demory, François; Kaya, Mustafa; Ocakoğlu, Faruk; Akkiraz, Mehmet Serkan; İbilioğlu, Deniz; Coster, Pauline; Métais, Grégoire; Raynaud, Benjamin; Beard, K. Christopher

doi:10.5194/cp-22-1585-2026

Articles | Volume 22, issue 9

https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-22-1585-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-22-1585-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 22, issue 9

Research article

|

31 Aug 2026

Research article |

| 31 Aug 2026

Anatolia (Türkiye) during the late Eocene and the Eocene–Oligocene Transition: successive warming and cooling, aridification, and implications for the westward dispersal of Asian terrestrial mammals

Paul Botté, Alexis Licht, Anne-Lise Jourdan, Leny Montheil, François Demory, Mustafa Kaya, Faruk Ocakoğlu, Mehmet Serkan Akkiraz, Deniz İbilioğlu, Pauline Coster, Grégoire Métais, Benjamin Raynaud, and K. Christopher Beard

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-22-1585-2026-supplement

Data sets

Paleomagnetic and magnetostratigraphic data of late Eocene–early Oligocene continental sediments from Büyükteflek (Anatolia, Turkey) Paul Botté et al. https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.995335

Stable and clumped isotope data from pedogenic carbonates of late Eocene–early Oligocene continental sediments from Büyükteflek (Anatolia, Turkey) Paul Botté et al. https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.995339

Short summary

The Eocene–Oligocene Transition (EOT; ~34 Ma) marks a major global cooling that transformed terrestrial ecosystems and influenced mammalian dispersals. A continental record from Anatolia reveals a Late Eocene warming followed by abrupt cooling at the EOT, documented by geochemistry and sedimentology. This interval is also characterized by increasing aridity, which likely contributed to the decline of endemic taxa and facilitated the westward expansion of Asian mammals into western Europe.