Contents

Contents list for the book:

· Introduction

· Amazonia in its wider context: Delimitations, river, vegetation and landscapes.

· Amazonia: Configuration of the sedimentary basins, the Andean foreland, and the significance of Andean tectonics on Amazonia’s sedimentary record and the Amazon Fan.

· Stratigraphy of Amazonia (synthesis of Neogene formations).

· Neogene sedimentary environments (Early Miocene E-W fluvial system; Middle Miocene paleo-Amazon wetland (W-E flow); Late Miocene to Pliocene with inferences based on Amazon Fan/Ceara Rise data; the extent of fluvial and/or tidal environments and marine incursions).

· The ancestral tropical rainforest and its evolution: A reconstruction based on a comparison of palynological data from Neogene to Present.

· Origin and evolution of the (unique) endemic mollusc fauna of the paleo-Amazon wetland.

· Ostracod speciation in the paleo-Amazon wetland.

· A reconstruction of Neogene water chemistry and it implications for the climate in Amazonia.

· Amazonia’s fish fauna: Origins and distribution patters in relation to Andean tectonics, past marine incursions, and the paleo-Amazon wetland.

· Vertebrate fauna in Neogene Amazonia: Evidence from the fossil record.

· Molecular studies of present fauna groups and implications of the dynamic geological past on present distribution patterns.

· Synthesis: Paleogeography of Amazonia with reference to the Amazon Fan and northern and southern South America.

Discussion of Neogene to Present landscape evolution in Amazonia linked to species evolution and diversity