Record of warm temperate pollen from the Palaeogene-Neogene lignite of southeast Nigeria: Consequences of regional palaeoclimatic changes or tectonics?

Podocarpus milanjianus, a wind-pollinated gymnosperm, found by earlier authors in the Miocene-Recent sediments of the Niger Delta has been attributed to wind-transport from the Cameroon Highlands. However, the abundance of the wind pollinated angiosperm A. verus in the coal, which is a closed system, excludes any such transport. Along with I. dubius/hiatus, this temperate pollen is the record of montane climate resulting from the middle Cenozoic uplift which raised the area as high as the present Cameroon Highlands. Pollen results substantiated vertical tectonic movements in Nigeria during the Middle-Late Cenozoic which resulted in local montane climate.