Plant communities of the geologic past can be reconstructed with high fidelity only if they were preserved in place in an instant in time. Here we report such a flora from an early Permian (ca. 298 Ma) ash-fall tuff in Inner Mongolia, a time interval and area where such information is filling a large gap of knowledge. About 1,000 m(2) of forest growing on peat could be reconstructed based on th...

New high-resolution U-Pb dates indicate a duration of 89 ± 38 kyr for the Permian hiatus and of 14 ± 57 kyr for the overlying Triassic microbial limestone in shallow water settings of the Nanpanjiang Basin, South China. The age and duration of the hiatus coincides with the Permian-Triassic boundary (PTB) and the extinction interval in the Meishan Global Stratotype Section and Point, and strongl...

The discovery of hydrocarbons (mainly gas) in commercial quantities from Gondwanan sediments in the Mandapeta ®eld of Krishna-Godavari Basin, India, provided impetus for intensi®ed exploration in Mandapeta and the adjoining Kommugudem, Draksharama and Endamuru ®elds. Both oil and gas have been found in the reservoirs of Mandapeta (Triassic) and Golapalli (Early Cretaceous) formations. Mature, l...

Generally Early Triassic floras are believed to be depauperate, suffering from protracted recovery following the Permian-Triassic extinction event. Here we present palynological data of an expanded East Greenland section documenting recovered floras in the basal Triassic (Griesbachian) and a subsequent fundamental floral turnover, postdating the Permian-Triassic boundary extinction by about 500...

Dicynodontia represent the most diverse tetrapod group during the Late Permian. They survived the Permo-Triassic extinction and are central to understanding Permo-Triassic terrestrial ecosystems. Although extensively studied, several aspects of dicynodont paleobiology such as, neuroanatomy, inner ear morphology and internal cranial anatomy remain obscure. Here we describe a new dicynodont (Ther...

The complex interplay between depositional facies and diagenesis in dolostones presents numerous challenges for calculating petrophysical properties from wireline logs. Complex pore geometries and mineralogies control rock petrophysical properties, and equations for calculating porosities and saturations must therefore be tailored to specific pore geometry-mineralogy combinations. The complex m...

Stratigraphic and sedimentological data from New South Wales and Queensland, eastern Australia, indicate that the Late Paleozoic Ice Age comprised at least eight discrete glacial intervals (each 1–8 Ma in duration, here termed “glaciations”), separated by nonglacial intervals of comparable duration. These events spanned an interval from mid-Carboniferous (c. 327 Ma) to the early Late Permian (c...

The initial stages of evolution of Diapsida (the large clade that includes not only snakes, lizards, crocodiles and birds, but also dinosaurs and numerous other extinct taxa) is clouded by an exceedingly poor Palaeozoic fossil record. Previous studies had indicated a 38 Myr gap between the first appearance of the oldest diapsid clade (Araeoscelidia), ca 304 million years ago (Ma), and that of i...

Adaptive radiations are central to macroevolutionary theory. Whether triggered by acquisition of new traits or ecological opportunities arising from mass extinctions, it is debated whether adaptive radiations are marked by initial expansion of taxic diversity or of morphological disparity (the range of anatomical form). If a group rediversifies following a mass extinction, it is said to have pa...

The end-Permian mass extinction was the most severe in the Phanerozoic, extinguishing more than 90% of marine and 75% of terrestrial species in a maximum of 61 ± 48 ky. Because of broad temporal coincidence between the biotic crisis and one of the most voluminous continental volcanic eruptions since the origin of animals, the Siberian Traps large igneous province (LIP), a causal connection has ...