The Early to Late Oligocene Propalaeocastor is the earliest known beaver genus from Eurasia. Although many species of this genus have been described, these species are defined based on very fragmentary specimens. Propalaeocastor irtyshensis from the Early Oligocene Irtysh River Formation in northwestern Xinjiang, China is one of the earliest-known members of Propalaeocastor. This species is def...

We review examples of placement of select Cenozoic Global Boundary Stratotype Sections and Points (GSSP = “golden spikes”) from a geochemical and magnetostratigraphic perspective. Though biostratigraphy is the sine qua non for placing modern chronologic tools (high-resolution radiometric dates, magnetochronology, and astrochronology) into proper stratigraphic context, its use as the primary cor...

Rare calcareous nannofossils from the Cape Roberts Project drillhole CRP-2A indicate that this area was episodically invaded by marginal oceanic surface waters during the late and late early Oligocene. These depauperate assemblages lack most of the biostratigraphic index fossils for the Oligocene, but do provide two datums that aid in constraining the age of the section: the last appearance dat...

A commented list of fossil Odonata from the Oligocene outcrop of Rott is given, together with descriptions of new traces of oviposition in plant tissues, very similar to ichnotaxa already known from the early Eocene Laguna del Hunco floras of Patagonia. The joint presences of odonatan larvae and traces of oviposition demonstrate the autochthony of these insects in the palaeolake of Rott, confir...

I report on tiny skeletons of stem-group hummingbirds from the early Oligocene of Germany that are of essentially modern appearance and exhibit morphological specializations toward nectarivory and hovering flight. These are the oldest fossils of modern-type hummingbirds, which had not previously been reported from the Old World. The findings demonstrate that early hummingbird evolution was not ...

We have used palaeomagnetic methods to constrain an age model for the 624.15 m succession of Oligocene-Miocene glaciomarine sediments recovered from the CRP-2/2A drillcore, McMurdo Sound, Antarctica. Identification of characteristic remanent magnetization (ChRM) directions on vector component plots demonstrates that secondary overprints have been successfully removed by stepwise alternating fie...

New compression leaf material of Ceratozamia (Zamiaceae) has been recognised in the European Cenozoic. A leaflet of Ceratozamia floersheimensis (Engelhardt) Kvaček was recovered among unidentified material from the Oligocene of Trbovlje, former Trifail, Slovenia, housed in old collections of the Austrian Geological Survey, Vienna. It is similar in morphology and epidermal anatomy to other speci...