Complete, articulated crinoids from the Ordovician peri-Gondwanan margin are rare. Here, we describe a new species, Iocrinus africanus sp. nov., from the Darriwilian-age Taddrist Formation of Morocco. The anatomy of this species was studied using a combination of traditional palaeontological methods and non-destructive X-ray micro-tomography (micro-CT). This revealed critical features of the co...

The palm tribe Chamaedoreeae reaches its higher diversity in Central America, however, its distribution ranges from the north eastern part of Mexico to Bolivia with a disjunction to the Mascarene Islands in the Indian Ocean. The disjunct distribution of Chamaedoreeae is generally considered a result of Gondwana vicariance and extinction from Africa and/or Madagascar. However, latitudinal migrat...

In a recent issue of Systematic Biology, Briggs (2003: Fishes and Birds: Gondwana Life Rafts Reconsidered, pp. 548–553) examines the current distributions of four vertebrate clades (cichlid fishes, aplocheiloid killifishes, ratites, and parrots), which have been attributed to the Mesozoic fragmentation of Gondwana (Parenti, 1981; Stiassny, 1991; Murphy and Collier, 1997; Farias et al., 1999). B...

Phylogenetic interrelationships among all 18 families of Poales were assessed by cladistic analysis of chloroplast DNA rbcL and atpB sequences from 65 species. There are two well-supported main clades; the graminoid clade with Poaceae (grasses), Anarthriaceae, Centrolepidaceae, Ecdeiocoleaceae, Flagellariaceae, Joinvilleaceae, and Restionaceae; and the cyperoid clade with Cyperaceae, Juncaceae,...

The palynological content from the Cerro La Chilca and Quebrada Ancha sections of the Wenlock? to Přídolí Los Espejos Formation, in the Argentinean Precordillera is studied. The marine palynomorphs exhibit higher relative abundance and diversity in almost all the productive samples, except for the uppermost ones from both sections, in coincidence with the shift towards more proximal facies in t...

A suite of ice-rafted dropstones and glendonites throughout the Permian succession of eastern Australia indicates the cold climate associated with the late Paleozoic ice age persisted longest in this part of Gondwana. Paradoxically, these cold climate indicators are preserved in transgressive and highstand facies and formed at mid to high latitudes at a time when paleofloral and sedimentologica...

U–Pb monazite and zircon ages reveal that the high pressure granulites from eastern Tanzania were metamorphosed during a Pan-African tectonothermal episode. These mineral ages range from 610 to 655 Ma and indicate that peak metamorphic conditions were diachronous in the different granulite domains. U–Pb titanite and rutile ages define integrated cooling rates of 2–5°C/Ma for all investigated gr...