In situ preservation of mud shrimps of the family Callianassidae (Decapoda: Axiidea) has rarely been noted in the fossil record. The present contribution reports body fossils of four members of the family (“Callianassa” almerai, “C.” pseudorakosensis, “C.” sp. 1 and “C.” sp. 2) which are apparently preserved within their burrows, all from middle Miocene deposits of Austria, Slovakia and Hungary...

A new geoemydid turtle, Ocadia tanegashimensis (Testudines: Geoemydidae) is described on the basis of a relatively well-preserved shell from the lower middle Miocene of Tanegashima Island, Kagoshima Prefecture, southwestern Japan. This species is clearly distinguished from two congeneric species (extant O. sinensis and O. nipponica from the middle Pleistocene of eastern Japan) due to the presen...

Oxygen isotopes in marine sulfate (delta18O(SO4)) measured in marine barite show variability over the past 10 million years, including a 5 per mil decrease during the Plio-Pleistocene, with near-constant values during the Miocene that are slightly enriched over the modern ocean. A numerical model suggests that sea level fluctuations during Plio-Pleistocene glacial cycles affected the sulfur cyc...

We describe here a new species of the bovid Criotherium, from the late Miocene of Bulgaria. The genus was previously known to definitely occur only in Samos (Greece) and Kemiklitepe (Western Turkey), with the single species C. argalioides. The new species, C. nikolovi, is more primitive than the latter, although both are probably contemporaneous, suggesting the occurrence of two lineages in the...

We summarize information concerning Recent and Pleistocene-Holocene Uruguayan sand dollars (Mellitidae), as well as Miocene taxa (Monophorasteridae). Recent and Pleistocene-Holocene species (Encope emarginata, Mellita quinquiesperforata, and Leodia sexisperforata) are at their southernmost limits of distribution, with only E. emarginata recorded further south than Uruguay. Lower temperatures to...

We report gravel of the River Euphrates, capped by basalt that is Ar-Ar dated to ∼9 Ma, at Shireen in northern Syria. This gravel, preserved by the erosion-resistant basalt, allows us for the first time to reconstruct the history of this major river during the Late Miocene. In response to progressive regional surface uplift, the Euphrates extended SE by ∼800 km between the early Middle Miocene,...

New fossils of giant, flightless penguinlike birds have been found in late Oligocene and early Miocene rocks in Japan and in the state of Washington. These birds belong to the order Pelecaniformes, in the extinct family Plotopteridae, previously known by a single fragment of bone from California. Hindlimb and pelvic morphology is most similar to that of Recent anhingas, but the wing is paddleli...

Miocene through Pleistocene sediments on the New Jersey continental slope (Ocean Drilling Program Site 1073) are undercompacted (porosity between 40 and 65%) to 640 meters below the sea floor, and this is interpreted to record fluid pressures that reach 95% of the lithostatic stress. A two-dimensional model, where rapid Pleistocene sedimentation loads permeable sandy silt of Miocene age, succes...

Fieldwork conducted since 1981 has greatly increased the sample of proboscidean fossils from Wadi Moghara, Egypt. The Moghara proboscidean assemblage is taxonomically more diverse than previously suspected, comprising four taxa: Gomphotherium angustidens libycum, Afrochoerodon kisumuensis, cf. Archaeobelodon, and Zygolophodon aegyptensis, sp. nov. Biochronological analysis of the proboscideans ...

lithological characteristics of the asmari formation in the burujen area are: pelagic foraminifera wackestone-packstone; bentic foraminifera echinid packstone; bentic foraminifera corallinaceapackstone; coral boundstone and echinid corallinacea packstone to grainstone; corallinacea boundstone; corallinacea bryozoa packstone; rniliolid echinid wackestone; and bioclastic wackestone. the examined ...