■ Abstract The Cordilleran orogen of western North America is a segment of the Circum-Pacific orogenic belt where subduction of oceanic lithosphere has been underway along a great circle of the globe since breakup of the supercontinent Pangea began in Triassic time. Early stages of Cordilleran evolution involved Neoproterozoic rifting of the supercontinent Rodinia to trigger miogeoclinal sedime...

Based on new material from Germany and Spain, the echinoid “Lepidocentrus” ibericus from the Early Devonian (Emsian) of northern Spain is shown to be congeneric with Rhenechinus from the Hunsrück Slate of south−western Germany. New in− formation on the lantern, pedicellariae and internal structure of the theca is provided, and confirms this genus as a member of the Echinocystitidae–Proterocidar...

The Late Devonian to Early Mississippian is an important metallogenic epoch within the Canadian cordillera resulting in the production of significant sediment exhalative massive sulphide (SEDEX) and volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) mineral occurrences within rocks of cratonic or pericratonic affinity. Major belts include the Late Devonian Earn-hosted SEDEX deposits of the Selwyn and Gataga d...

Seed plants underwent first major evolutionary radiation in the Late Devonian (Famennian), as evidenced by the numerous ovules described to date. However, the early pollen organs are underrepresented, so that their structure and evolution remain poorly known. Here we report a new taxon of pollen organ Placotheca minuta from the Late Devonian. The synangium consists of many basally and more or l...

The first virtual cranial endocast of a lungfish from the Early Devonian, Dipnorhynchus sussmilchi, is described. Dipnorhynchus, only the fourth Devonian lungfish for which a near complete cranial endocast is known, is a key taxon for clarifying primitive character states within the group. A ventrally-expanded telencephalic cavity is present in the endocast of Dipnorhynchus demonstrating that t...

The Silurian–Devonian plant radiation was an event triggered by the progressive colonization of subaerial habitats. Nevertheless, it is still unclear whether this globally uniform or alternative diversification scenarios emerged depending on geographical context. Here, we report early land diversity patterns across different previously defined palaeogeographical units (i.e., Laurussia, Siberia,...

Acanthostega is one of the earliest and most primitive limbed vertebrates. Its numerous fish-like features indicate a primarily aquatic lifestyle, yet cranial suture morphology suggests that its skull is more similar to those of terrestrial taxa. Here, we apply geometric morphometrics and two-dimensional finite-element analysis to the lower jaws of Acanthostega and 22 other tetrapodomorph taxa ...

The Late Devonian (Frasnian-Famennian) interval includes one of the most dramatic intervals of biotic turnover in the Phanerozoic. Statistical evaluation of diversity change reveals that the primary cause of biodiversity decline was reduced speciation during the crisis interval, not elevated extinction rates. Although various hypotheses have been proposed to explain extinction increase during t...