ABSTRACT • INTRODUCTION • PROCEDURE, Assigning rock units to time slices • Taxonomy and latitudinal endpoints of taxa • Effective temperature • Paleoshorelines and paleoclimatic regions • Assignment of rock units to time slices • Molluscan stages, Biostratigraphic problems • Taxonomy and latitudinal endpoints of taxa • Faunal lists • Taxonomy Endpoints of geographic ranges and ecologic data of taxa • Effective temperature • Present-day molluscan and paleomolluscan provinces Climatic regions • Continental climatic regions defined by temperature • Marine climatic regions defined by temperature • Effective temperature for fossil taxa • Percentage of fossil taxa with a particular effective temperature • PALEOSHORELINE MAPS AND PALEOCLIMATIC REGIONS • RESULTS • DISCUSSION • Role of temperature in limiting distribution of marine mollusks • Regional and global climatic changes • Late late Oligocene to late early Miocene time • Late early Miocene to early medial Miocene time • Late medial Miocene to early late Miocene time • Late Miocene to early Pliocene time • Early to late Pliocene time • Pleistocene time • Extralimital and extraprovincial or thermally anomalous molluscan taxa • Explanations for extraprovincial and thermally anomalous taxa • Sea-level oscillations • Regional extinction events • Survivorship of 1206 species, mostly molluscan taxa • Volcanism, climate, and extinctions Temperate marine paleoclimate • Species diversity • Increasing species diversity through time • Present-day latitudinal, molluscan diversity gradients Paleogeography • CONCLUSIONS • SUMMARY • ACKNOWLEDGMENTS • APPENDICES