Paleobotanical Evidence for High Altitudes in Nevada During the Miocene

Leaf physiognomy provides estimates of environmental parameters, including mean annual enthalpy, which is a thermodynamic parameter of the atmosphere that varies with altitude. Analyses of 12 mid-Miocene floras from western Nevada indicate that this part of the Basin and Range Province stood ∼3 kilometers above sea level at 15 to 16 million years ago, which is 1 to 1.5 kilometers higher than its present altitude. Much, if not all, of the collapse to present-day altitudes seems to have been achieved by ∼13 million years ago. The crust in much of this area has been extended and thinned throughout the past 40 to 50 million years, and the isostatic balance of a thinning crust requires subsidence, not uplift as suggested by previous paleobotanical work.