Aplacophorans have long been argued to be basal molluscs. We present a molecular phylogeny, including the aplacophorans Neomeniomorpha (Solenogastres) and Chaetodermomorpha (Caudofoveata), which recovered instead the clade Aculifera (Aplacophora + Polyplacophora). Our relaxed Bayesian molecular clock estimates an Early Ordovician appearance of the aculiferan crown group consistent with the pres...

The Ordovician strike-slip faults system in the Tahe area of Tarim Basin provides an important opportunity for using 3D seismic data to document structural characteristics, formation, and evolution their relationship with oil gas. With high-resolution data, are interpreted, classified, described coherence technique. geometric active periods, process analyzed, between hydrocarbon accumulation ch...

Transposition in conservative fields reaches its full potential in case that is unexplainable for any well-established theory. There are a number of phenomena and findings in various areas of science that stays in disagreement with those theories. Number of them were analyzed and described in this paper. Additionally, reason for Z-Process and its consequences in the galaxy scale was given.

The Mongolepidida is an Order of putative early chondrichthyan fish, originally erected to unite taxa from the Lower Silurian of Mongolia. The present study reassesses mongolepid systematics through the examination of the developmental, histological and morphological characteristics of scale-based specimens from the Upper Ordovician Harding Sandstone (Colorado, USA) and the Upper Llandovery-Low...

Thick carbonate rocks were developed in the depression of the Tarim craton during the Cambrian-Middle Ordovician periods. The compressional tectonic movement during the Middle Caledonian-Hercynian created the paleouplifts, which became the base for the paleokarst in the Ordovician carbonate rocks. Based on the large quantity of seismic, drilling, and geological outcrop data, this study analyzed...

How does the choice of size metric, specimen selection, and taxonomic level affect the results of macroevolutionary or ecological analyses? Four molluscan data sets are used to address this question as follows. First, the relationships among various size metrics are examined using a morphometric data set of Late Cretaceous–Oligocene veneroid bivalves. Second, the relationship between the size o...

The colonization of the terrestrial environment by land plants transformed the planetary surface and its biota, and shifted the balance of Earth's biomass from the subsurface towards the surface. However there was a long delay between the formation of palaeosols (soils) on the land surface and the key stage of plant colonization. The record of palaeosols, and their colonization by fungi and lic...