The ancient marine limestone beds of the upper part of the Guanling Formation, Panxian County, Guizhou Province, SW China, yielded a wide range of high-diversity wellpreserved marine reptiles such as the fully aquatic protorosaur with an extremely long neck Dinocephalosaurus orientalis, the oldest mixosaurid ichthyosaurs and lariosaurs. However, there is no precise isotopic age to study the int...

We used a combined analysis of one nuclear (28S rDNA) and three mitochondrial markers (COI, 12S rDNA, 16S rDNA) to infer the molecular phylogeny of the Notostraca, represented by samples from the six continents that are inhabited by this group of branchiopod crustaceans. Our results confirm the monophyly of both extant notostracan genera Triops and Lepidurus with good support in model based and...

The classic Neotethyan Ankara Melange formed within the Triassic-Eocene İzmir-Ankara-Erzincan ocean (‘N Neotethys’), bordered in central Anatolia by Kırşehir and Tauride-Anatolide continental units to south discontinuous Sakarya continent northwest. Farther north, separate Intra-Pontide probably remained partly open until early Cenozoic. developed via phases of intra-oceanic accretion (mainly p...

A total of 17 sphene and 45 zircon fission track ages (FTA) are reported from the Piedmont Province of Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland, the Reading Prong of New Jersey, and the Newark Basin of Pennsylvania. With the exception of one sphene sample, FTA fall within a relatively restricted age range: sphene 190-217 Ma (average 199 Ma) and zircon 143-218 Ma (average 184 Ma). Near concordance o...

[1] A >500-km-long east-west trending metamorphic belt in the Qiangtang terrane of central Tibet consists of tectonic melange that occurs in the footwalls of Late Triassic–Early Jurassic domal low-angle normal faults. The melange is comprised of a strongly deformed matrix of metasedimentary and mafic schists that encloses lesser-deformed blocks of metabasites, Carboniferous–Triassic metasedimen...

The Permian-Triassic Mass Extinction (PTME) is the greatest biotic crisis of Phanerozoic. In terrestrial settings, PTME appears to have been diachronous and it has suggested that losses initiated before marine crisis. We examine organic carbon-isotope (?13Corg) geochemical proxies for environmental change in a palaeotropical wetland succession from southwest China. A newly constructed astronomi...

In addition to their devastating effects on global biodiversity, mass extinctions have had a long-term influence on the history of life by eliminating dominant lineages that suppressed ecological change. Here, we test whether the end-Permian mass extinction (252.3 Ma) affected the distribution of tetrapod faunas within the southern hemisphere and apply quantitative methods to analyze four compo...

Abstract The scarce evidence of paleontological records between the upper Permian and Anisian (Middle Triassic) Western Europe could reflect (1) large stratigraphic gaps in continental successions and/or (2) persistence disturbed conditions after Permian–Triassic Boundary extinction event succession ecological crises that occurred during Early Triassic. In this context, study palynological asso...

Orbitally controlled, sedimentary cycles of the Newark Supergroup permit palyniferous Late Triassic sections to be calibrated in time. Carnian palynofloras from · the Richmond basin exhibit 2-m.y. fluctuations in the spore/pollen ratio, but taxonomic composition remains stable. Diversity of Norian and Rhaetian palynofloras increases prior to a 60% reduction at the Triassic/Jurassic boundary. Th...

Tanytrachelos ahynis (n.gen., n. sp.) is a lepidosaur from the Late Triassic Dan River Group (Newark Supergroup) of North Carolina and Virginia. The new reptile has gracile proportions similar to Tanystropheus (Middle Triassic) and is referred to the family Tanystropheidae of the suborder Prolacertiformes. Unlike Tanystropheus, Tanytrachelos has relatively short cervical vertebrae bearing splin...