Ladinian ammonoids from the Balaton Highland (Hungary) : II. Veszprémfajsz

A local intraplatform basin developed in the Gartnerkofel-Zielkofel area of the Carnic Alps (southern Carinthia, Austria) during the Middle Triassic (Ladinian). This basin was filled with a transgressive basinal sequence composed of the Uggowitz Formation and overlying Buchenstein Formation. At the northwestern slope of the Gartnerkofel, the platform carbonates of the Schlern Dolomite interfinger with the Buchenstein Formation, causing the formation of two depositional sequences. The Uggowitz Formation consists of the Uggowitz Breccia and the Kuhweg Member. Sediments of the Uggowitz Breccia were formed by different types of gravity induced processes. The Kuhweg Member is a thin sequence of silt-and fine-grained sandstones which were deposited in a slope to basin margin environment by turbidity currents. The overlying Buchenstein Formation consists of hemipelagic to pelagic limestones of Fassanian age with intercalated pyroclastic rocks (Pietra verde). Nodular limestones were deposited under slow rates of accumulation during a relative sea-level highstand. The uppermost Buchenstein Formation is composed of hemipelagic limestone beds with intercalated graded calcarenites and breccias of platform-derived debris, showing characteristics features of a fore-reef slope of the prograding Schlern Dolomite. Uggowitz Formation and basal Buchenstein Formation are interpreted as a transgressive systems tract, nodular limestones from the middle part of the Buchenstein Formation mark an early highstand systems tract, forereef slope sediments of the upper Buchenstein Formation formed during the beginning regression of a late highstand systems tract, the basal part of the overlying Schlern Dolomite probably reflects a lowstand systems tract. The intercalated bedded limestone facies within the Schlern Dolomite is characterized by large, platform derived blocks, slump structures, breccia beds, graded calcarenites and hemipelagic limestones indicating a forereef slope environent. This intercalated facies belongs to the Buchenstein Formation and interfingers with the Schlern Dolomite. Conodonts from this intercalated slope facies point to Late Fassanian age. Therefore, the two Middle Triassic depositional sequences of the Gartnerkofel area can be correlated with the depositional sequences ‘Ladinian 1’ and ‘Ladinian 2’ of the Dolomites, proposed byDe Zanche et al. (1993). A brief comparison with the basinal sequences of similar age of the karawanken Mountains and the Carnia is presented.

Les faunes de Cardioceratinae (Ammonoidea) du Callovien terminal et de l'Oxfordien inférieur et moyen (Jurassique) de la Suisse septentrionale: Stratigraphie, paléoécologie, taxonomie préliminaire

Comparing four mitochondrial genes in earthworms – Implications for identification, phylogenetics, and discovery of cryptic species

The Ladinian rocks of Central Lombardy consist of carbonate platforms (Esino Formation) subdivided by intraplatform troughs represented either by dark, well bedded limestones, marls and dolomites of poorly oxic to anoxic environment (Perledo-Varenna and Lierna Formations), or by grey nodular cherty limestones (Buchenstein Formation). Subsidence and deposition rates were high ( >100 m/MA), both on the carbonate platform and in the anoxic intraplatform troughs. Sedimentological study of the anoxic intraplatform rocks in the Grigne Mountains has identified 12 main lithofacies with mudstone/ wackestones, both massive and laminated, forming more than 2/3 of the total thickness. Packstones and carbonate breccias, all originating or fed from the neighbouring shallow carbonate platforms, represent 6 % of the total thickness in the basin. Also the dominating micrite is thought to have originated by overproduction on the carbonate platform. Concerning the depositional processes, almost 3/4 of the total thickness is interpreted x re-sedimented. Dolomitization is widespread in the marginal parts of the basin. No benthonic macrofauna is present, and only sporadically the bottom oxygen content was sufficient to support a non skeletal infauna. Two depositional sequences have been detected, both causing emersion on the carbonare platform. The younger emersion was severe and the platform/basin system ceased to exist. The Grigne Mountains are presently arranged in three main tectonically stacked sheets. Vitrinite Reflectance, Illite Crystallinity Index, and Conodont Alteration Index, all suggest an increase of temperature within the sheets, from south to north, i.e. from the geometrically deeper to the more elevated, which has reached the field of deep diagenesis or even anchimetamorphism.

Detection of aquatic species is imperfect, especially if the species is rare and exhibits spatial and temporal variability. Many fish species require a number of sampling trips before detection is positive. And yet, information on species persistence is critical for effective conservation efforts. New forensic genetic techniques, such as environmental DNA (eDNA), have been developed and successfully used to validate the presence of exotic aquatic species in new areas. We compared detection of a federally listed, threatened, migratory fish species the Slackwater darter (Etheostoma boschungi); using eDNA to concomitantly collected field collections. Detection probabilities for this species are variable, but consistently low in recent collections. Our results indicated that detection using eDNA was vastly more effective than traditional sampling at confirming the presence of the Slackwater darter. Positive detection at non-breeding sites was half of the detection rate at breeding sites, most likely to the greater area available in non-breeding streams. These data suggest that eDNA is an effective tool for quickly evaluating a relatively large number of sites for the presence of rare aquatic species.

Early late Visean ammonoid assemblages in Morocco are composed of diverse and well-preserved specimens. The material was found in a plain in the Tafilalt (eastern Anti-Atlas). Here, we describe mass-occurrences of juvenile specimens, in which subadult and adult specimens occur in low numbers. The juveniles of some species display a conch morphology that differs fundamentally from the adult stages. Accordingly, we emend the species diagnoses of Goniatites lazarus as well as Calygirtyoceras darkaouaense, introduce the species Entogonites bucheri sp. nov., and discuss possible ecological implications of the morphologic changes throughout ontogeny. In particular, we compare the changes in conch morphology through ontogeny in the light of Pareto Optimiality according to which the morphology of organisms would fill a polygon or polyhedron in morphospace. Data points in one of the vorteces of the polyhedron indicate optimisation for the corresponding task. Although shape is not a proof of function, it appears pl...

Since 1990, the Kundur locality (Amur Region, Far Eastern Russia) has yielded a rich dinosaur fauna. The main fossil site occurs along a road section with a nearly continuous exposure of continental sediments of the Kundur Formation and the Tsagayan Group (Udurchukan and Bureya formations). The sedimentary environment of the Kundur Formation evolves from lacustrine to wetland settings. The succession of megafloras discovered in this formation confirms the sedimentological data. The Tsagayan Group beds were deposited in an alluvial environment of the ‘gravel-meandering’ type. The dinosaur fossils are restricted to the Udurchukan Formation. Scarce and eroded bones can be found within channel deposits, whereas abundant and well-preserved specimens, including sub-complete skeletons, have been discovered in diamicts. These massive, unsorted strata represent the deposits of ancient sediment gravity flows that originated from the uplifted areas at the borders of the Zeya-Bureya Basin. These gravity flows assured the concentration of dinosaur bones and carcasses as well as their quick burial. Such taphonomic conditions allowed the preservation of sub-complete hadrosaurid skeletons unearthed at the Kundur site. Palaeobotanical data indicate a subtropical climate during the deposition of the Kundur and Udurchukan formations. Several elements in the composition of the Kundur vertebrate fauna suggest a strong influence of the North American late Cretaceous vertebrate communities: the abundance of corythosaur-like lambeosaurines, the probable presence of a nodosaurid dinosaur and of a eucosmodontid or microcosmodontid multituberculate. A late Maastrichtian age is tentatively proposed for the dinosaur-bearing sediments in Amur Region, by comparison with the information collected in the Western Interior Basin of North America. As it is also observed in the latter area, important floristic changes (diminution of angiosperm pollens and predominance of modern families) and the disappearance of dinosaurs mark the end of the Maastrichtian age in the Amur Region. Late Maastrichtian dinosaur localities from Amur Region are dominated by lambeosaurines, whereas these dinosaurs apparently disappeared from western North America long before the iridium horizon that defines the K/P boundary. This local disappearance is therefore probably due to ecological factors rather than indicating a gradual extinction of the dinosaurs long before the K/P boundary.

Eastern Australia has two major Mesozoic fossil localities. The Talbragar Fish Bed in central west New South Wales contains an assemblage of Upper Jurassic fishes, plants and insects. The Koonwarra Fossil Bed, in South Gippsland, Victoria, has an assemblage of Lower Cretaceous fishes, plants and insects. The geological settings of these localities are described. Each locality has a common genus of fish that was originally described as Leptolepis. The names of both these fish have been changed, the Talbragar one to Cavenderichthys talbragarensis and the Koonwarra one to Waldmanichthys koonwarri . Both of these fish have been placed into the Family Luisiellidae, together with a Patagonian fish, Luisiella feruglioi . Each locality also has a member of the family Archaeomenidae: Archaeomene tenuis from Talbragar and Wadeichthys oxyops from Koonwarra. The relationships of these and other fish have been discussed by various authors over the last 20 years and a summary of these comments is presented, as well as a brief comparison between the plants of both localities. The localities of Talbragar, Koonwarra and the Argentinian fishes during the Mesozoic appear to have similar palaeo-environmental settings, which may explain the similarities in the assemblages. The Australian localities contain well-preserved specimens which shed light on the diversity and extent of fishes in southern Gondwana, a region otherwise poorly represented in the fossil record.

Wachholz, a new exquisite dinosaur-bearing fossiliferous site from the Upper Triassic of southern Brazil

The Jurassic of the Alpine-Mediterranean Tethys was characterized by the formation of several interconnected basins, which underwent gradual deepening and oceanization. Sedimentation in each basin was influenced by a specific set of interrelated factors, such as tectonic activity, seawater circulation, climate, chemistry and trophic state of seawater as well as evolutionary changes of the marine biota. This paper deals with the Fatricum Domain (Central Carpathians, Poland and Slovakia), which in the Jurassic was a pull-apart basin on a thinned continental crust. The sedimentation history of this domain during the Bajocian–Tithonian and its governing factors have been revealed. Facies analysis of the Bajocian–Oxfordian deposits evidences considerable relief of the basin-floor topography. Deposits in the Western Tatra Mts represent sedimentation on a submarine intrabasinal high, whereas the coeval deposits of the eastern part of the Tatra Mts accumulated in a deeper basin. The basin succession began with Bajocian bioturbated "spotted" limestones and siliciclastic mudstones (Fleckenmergel facies). These were succeeded by uppermost Bajocian - middle Bathonian grey nodular limestones, affected by synsedimentary gravitational bulk creep. The coeval deposits of the intrabasinal high are represented by well-washed Bositra-crinoidal limestones with condensed horizons. Uniform radiolarite sedimentation commenced in the late Bathonian and persisted until the early late Kimmeridgian. The basal ribbon radiolarites (upper Bathonian - lower Oxfordian), which consist of alternating chert beds and shale partings, are a record of seawater eutrophication, a related crisis in carbonate production and the rise of the CCD, which collectively resulted in biosiliceous sedimentation. The overlying calcareous radiolarites (middle Oxfordian - lowermost upper Kimmeridgian) marked a gradual return to carbonate sedimentation. The return of conditions that were favourable for carbonate sedimentation took place in the late Kimmeridgian, when the red nodular limestones were deposited. They are partly replaced by basinal platy limestones (uppermost Kimmeridgian - Tithonian) in the Western Tatra Mts. This lateral variation in facies reflects a change in the sedimentary conditions governed by a bathymetric reversal of the seafloor configuration, attributed to a further stage in the pull-apart transcurrent tectonics of the Fatricum Domain.

The Julian Alps are located in NW Slovenia and structurally belong to the Julian Nappe where the Southern Alps intersect with the Dinarides. In the Jurassic, the area was a part of the southern Tethyan continental margin and experienced extensional faulting and differential subsidence during rifting of the future margin. The Mesozoic succession in the Julian Alps is characterized by a thick pile of Upper Triassic to Lower Jurassic platform limestones of the Julian Carbonate Platform, unconformably overlain by Bajocian to Tithonian strongly condensed limestones of the Prehodavci Formation of the Julian High. The Prehodavci Formation is up to 15 m thick, consists of Rosso Ammonitico type limestone and is subdivided into three members. The Lower Member consists of a condensed red, well-bedded bioclastic limestone with Fe–Mn nodules, passing into light-grey, faintly nodular limestone. The Middle Member occurs discontinuously and consists of thin-bedded micritic limestone. The Upper Member unconformably overlies the Lower or Middle Members. It is represented by red nodular limestone, and by red-marly limestone with abundant Saccocoma sp. The Prehodavci Formation unconformably overlies the Upper Triassic to Lower Jurassic platform limestone of the Julian Carbonate Platform; the contact is marked by a very irregular unconformity. It is overlain by the upper Tithonian pelagic Biancone (Maiolica) limestone. The sedimentary evolution of the Julian High is similar to that of Trento Plateau in the west and records: (1) emergence and karstification of part of the Julian Carbonate Platform in the Pliensbachian, or alternatively drowning of the platform and development of the surface by sea-floor dissolution; (2) accelerated subsidence and drowning in the Bajocian, and onset of the condensed pelagic sedimentation (Prehodavci Formation) on the Julian High; (3) beginning of sedimentation of the Biancone limestone in the late Tithonian.

The opening of the Neo?Tethys started in the Middle Anisian and is recorded in the drowning succession of the shallow?water Ravni/Steinalm Carbonate Ramp and the subsequent deposition of deep?marine limestones, e.g., the red nodular limestones of the Bulog Group and equivalents. In the Inner Dinarides of southwest Serbia the continental break?up of the Neo? Tethys Ocean is characterized by the formation of a horst?and?graben topography. The change from deposition of shallow?water carbonates formed in an epicontinental sea (graben stage of the Neo?Tethys Wilson Cycle) to red nodular deep?marine limestones (Bulog Limestone) in the late Pelsonian (Middle Anisian) is relatively abrupt due to the rapid decrease of carbonate production. The deeper?water Bulog Limestone, deposited in the early stage of the passive continental margin evolution of the western Neo?Tethys can be dated by conodonts and in rare cases also by ammonoids quite exactly, and therefore it is possible to reconstruct the Pelsonian to Illyrian sedimentological evolution precisely: 1) The late Pelsonian is characterized by the drowning of the shallow?water Ravni Carbonate Ramp and a rapid deepening of the depositional realm. Extension led to the formation of neptunian dikes in the shallow?water Ravni Formation, filled with deeper?marine red micrite, and the formation of a horst?and?graben morphology. Whereas some of the horsts uplifted and emerged in the grabens near to the newly formed escarpments thick breccia successions were deposited with a fining?upward trend during the early?middle Illyrian. On top of other horsts, the grabens, or the newly formed gentle slopes red nodular limestones were deposited. In cases layers with enriched ammonoids formed (Fossillagerst?tten). 2) The early?middle Illyrian ongoing subsidence resulted in the deposition of more and more condensed red nodular limestones with hardground formation. 3) Around the middle/late Illyrian boundary a new pulse of tectonic motions resulted in the tilting of blocks, the formation of new escarpments and again mobilization of mass transport deposits. In addition, a second generation of neptunian dikes was formed. They crosscut the late Pelsonian to middle Illyrian Bulog Limestone, the Pelsonian Ravni Formation, and the older generation of neptunian dikes in the shallow?water Ravni Formation. All formerly emerged horsts flooded and red nodular limestones were deposited on the karstified shallow?water Ravni Formation after a gap. This second pulse of tectonic motions is related to the widespread volcanism in the Dinarides as visible in the appearance of mm?sized biotite clasts in the late Illyrian Bulog Limestone. In contrast to the Outer Dinarides, where thick volcanics are intercalated in the Illyrian sedimentary succession, in the Bulog Limestone successions of the Inner Dinarides volcanics are missing. In general the Pelsonian?Illyrian sedimentary succession is characterized by a stepwise deepening of the depositional realm.

Sigmodontine rodents are extremely diversified in the Neotropics but their fossil record remains generally poorly known, especially in Brazil. Here, we examine the assemblage of sigmodontines from the limestone cave Nossa Senhora Aparecida (21°5ʹ27.89”S 56°34ʹ28.77”W), located in Serra da Bodoquena (Mato Grosso do Sul), a karstic region in southwestern Brazil. We describe cranial and dental fragments and recognise the presence of some new species not previously recorded for the region, as Bibimys sp., Graomys cf. G. chacoensis, Thalpomys lasiotis, and Pseudoryzomys simplex. This fossil assemblage is comparable to others fossil sites in Brazil, such as those from Goiás and Rio Grande do Sul, with the predominance of species from open areas, including grasslands, and some of forested environments from Cerrado landscapes.

A high resolution chronology of deep water charophyte algal remains in the Pyramid Valley lake deposit, North Canterbury, South Island, New Zealand, records the presence and drainage of a previously unsuspected much larger (c. 50 ha) lake. The larger lake occupied the surrounding basin and the present lake (1 ha) was a semi-isolated embayment at its south-western margin. Fluctuating lake levels and its final drainage drove changes in the vegetation and hence in the habitats available for the avifauna recorded in the rich fossil record. A high precision radiocarbon age on the only South Island goose (Cnemiornis calcitrans) in the fauna coincided with the presence of lowland forest and not with the brief period when sedges and grassland colonised the newly exposed former lake bed. This suggests that the South Island goose was able to survive in different habitats through successive glacial-interglacial vegetation cycles. Information from other disciplines can be essential to interpreting both a fossil site and the circumstances surrounding the presence of a particular species in it.

The previously poorly known“Tapiravus” polkensisOlsen, 1960 (Mammalia, Perissodactyla, Tapiridae) is now known from abundant, well preserved specimens from both the type area in central Florida and from the Gray Fossil Site (GFS) in eastern Tennessee. The latter has produced over 75 individuals, the greatest number of tapirids from a single fossil site, including many articulated skeletons. Almost all linear measurements taken on skulls, mandibles, and cheek teeth from GFS have coefficients of variation less than 10 (most between 3 and 7), indicating the presence of a single species. However, the sample reveals considerable intraspecific variation for a few key morphologic features, including development of the sagittal crest, outline shape of the nasals, and number and relative strength of lingual cusps on the P1. The Florida sample ofT. polkensisis more limited, but has the same state as the GFS sample for all preserved characters of systematic significance, and while the Florida teeth are on average smaller (especially narrower lower cheek teeth), they fall either within or just below the observed range of the Gray Fossil Site population. The new material supports a reassignment of“Tapiravus” polkensisto the genusTapirus, and demonstrates that the geologic age of the species is significantly younger than previously thought, Hemphillian rather than Barstovian.Tapirus polkensisis the smallest known North AmericanTapirus, and smaller than any of the extant species in the genus, with an estimated average mass of 125 kg.