During exploration in Argentina in 1997, Dr. Johnson was part of a team that began to excavate the Laguna del Hunco flora in central Chubut Province, Patagonia. The site is significant because the flora was radiometrically dated at 52 million years ago, the time of maximum global warming. National Science Foundation funding (DEB-0345910) enables further exploration and analysis of the site as well as other Cretaceous to Eocene floras.
To date two additional Eocene sites have been quarried as well as the Palacio de los Loros site, now the best-known Paleocene flora in South America. When compared with coeval floras from the Rocky Mountains, these Southern Hemisphere floras will provide insight on the consequences of greenhouse climates. Funding for this project has been received from the National Science Foundation and the research is being carried out in cooperation with Peter Wilf, Penn State University, and Egidio Feruglio, Museo Paleontológico in Trelew, Chubut.
