Pollen records of Northern South America: Quaternary history

An overview is presented of the Quaternary history of Northern South America. In the Andes, long pollen records show vegetation and climate change reflecting ice-ages of the last 2 million years to millennial-scale dynamics. Montane forest shows a high resilience. The development of the Amazon drainage basin is closely related to the uplift of the Andes and obtained its present form in the Neogene. The evolution of its high biodiversity on a substrate of Andean sediments, and the birth of the Amazon River about 10 Ma, are documented. A 20 kyr history of environmental change of the Colombian savannas is presented. Anthropogenic rates-of-change are alarming and surpassed levels at the Lateglacial to Holocene transition.