The age of tuffaceous interlayers, represented by tuffs and tuffites, which are common in the Upper Jurassic-Lower Cretaceous deposits Western Siberia (the Bazhenovo, Tutleim Frolov Formations), is discussed. nature these interlayers associated with subglobal (transfer more than 1--2 thousand km) spread volcanic ash (0.001--0.1 mm) its sedimentation burial a vast epicontinental marine basin dur...

Limestones designated the Štramberk-type are most common carbonate exotic clasts (exotics) embedded in uppermost Jurassic–Miocene flysch deposits of Polish Outer Carpathians. About 80% stratigraphically determinable exotics from Silesian, Sub-Silesian and Skole units (nappes) Tithonian (mostly)–Berriasian (sporadically Valanginian) age. A study these revealed eight main facies types: coral-micr...

42 ontemporary political summits and policy decisions, like those at Johannesburg and Rio de Janeiro and the Montreal and Kyoto Protocols, are clear evidence that world leaders and their communities are increasingly concerned about the Earth’s climate and its future. Policy makers frequently turn to scientists for definitive answers and pragmatic solutions to climate problems and too often focu...

Saurischian dinosaurs were pneumatic animals. The presence of invasive skeletal foramina leading to large internal chambers within the skeleton strongly indicate the presence of avian-style skeletal pneumaticity of the skeleton in sauropodomorphs and non-avian theropods. While the hypothesis of skeletal pneumaticity has undergone a renaissance in recent years, it was initially promoted during t...

The Dinarides, together with the Albanides and Hellenides, preserve stratigraphic successions derived from eastern margin of Adriatic microplate remnants ophiolites obducted Maliac-Vardar branch Neotethys Ocean. main stages in Mesozoic geodynamic history are: 1) rifting leading to opening Maliac Ocean Late Anisian, 2) onset an east-dipping intra-oceanic subduction Early-Middle Jurassic sea-floo...

– The joint quantification of disparity and diversity is an important aspect of recent macroevolutionary studies, and is usually motivated by theoretical considerations on the pace of innovation and the filling of morphospace. In practice, varying protocols of data collection and analysis have rendered comparisons among studies difficult. The basic question remains, how sensitive is any given d...

Subduction zones are the primary regions on Earth today where crust recycling takes place, and through geological time they have been the sites of continent formation. Many of the key elements (e.g., Th, rare earth elements, Ba, and Be) that are important in understanding crustal growth are sequestered in the sedimentary column and in the uppermost oxidized portions of the volcanic section of o...

Dating analyses based on molecular data imply that crown angiosperms existed in the Triassic, long before their undisputed appearance in the fossil record in the Early Cretaceous. Following a re-analysis of the age of angiosperms using updated sequences and fossil calibrations, we use a series of simulations to explore the possibility that the older age estimates are a consequence of (i) major ...