The Molteno, Elliot, and Clarens formations comprise the continental Stormberg Group of the Karoo Basin of South Africa and Lesotho. The Molteno Formation contains a well preserved macroand microfloral assemblage but apparently no vertebrates; the Elliot and Clarens formations contain abundant vertebrates but virtually no floral remains. The vertebrate taxa represented by skeletal remains are l...

Carbonatites, usually occurring within intra-continental rift-related settings, have strong light rare earth element (LREE) enrichment; they rarely contain economic heavy REE (HREE). Here, we report the identification of Late Triassic HREE-Mo-rich carbonatites in the northernmost Qinling orogen. The rocks contain abundant primary HREE minerals and molybdenite. Calcite-hosted fluid inclusions, i...

Sauropodomorph dinosaurs originated in the Southern Hemisphere in the Middle or Late Triassic and are commonly portrayed as spreading rapidly to all corners of Pangaea as part of a uniform Late Triassic to Early Jurassic cosmopolitan dinosaur fauna. Under this model, dispersal allegedly inhibited dinosaurian diversification, while vicariance and local extinction enhanced it. However, apomorphy-...

The dinosaur Plateosaurus engelhardti is the most abundant dinosaur in the Late Triassic of Europe and the best known basal sauropodomorph. Plateosaurus engelhardti was one of the first sauropodomorph dinosaurs to display a large body size. Remains can be found in the Norian stage of the Late Triassic in over 40 localities in Central Europe (France, Germany, and Switzerland) and in Greenland. S...

Proterochampsids are crocodile-like, probably semi-aquatic, quadrupedal archosauriforms characterized by an elongated and dorsoventrally low skull. The group is endemic from the Middle-Late Triassic of South America. The most recently erected proterochampsid species is "Chanaresuchus ischigualastensis", based on a single, fairly complete skeleton from the early Late Triassic Ischigualasto Forma...

The first abundant, well-preserved fossils of the unusual archosauromorph reptile Trilophosaurus jacobsi Murry are from an Upper Triassic bonebed in the lower-most Trujillo Formation of the Chinle Group in Borden County, Texas. A nearly complete left side of the skull and incomplete but articulated mandible of a juvenile individual demonstrate that Trilophosaurus jacobsi Murry is referable to T...

Phytosaurs are a clade of large, carnivorous pseudosuchian archosaurs from the Late Triassic with a near cosmopolitan distribution. Their superficial resemblance to longirostrine (long-snouted) crocodylians, such as gharials, has often been used in the past to infer ecological and behavioural convergence between the two groups. Although more than thirty species of phytosaur are currently recogn...

The record of dinosaur body-fossils in the Brazilian Mesozoic is restricted to the Triassic of Rio Grande do Sul and Cretaceous of various parts of the country. This includes 21 named species, two of which were regarded as nomina dubia, and 19 consensually assigned to Dinosauria. Additional eight supraspecific taxa have been identified based on fragmentary specimens and numerous dinosaur footpr...

In the last 500 million years, Earth's biota experienced periods of crises with extinctions on a large scale and significant turnover events, one them being Permian/Triassic boundary extinction event. The following Early Triassic was critical time marked by series biological environmental changes complex recovery pattern marine faunas ecosystems. Generally, animals plants respond to stress usin...

Reprocessed, regional, 2D seismic reflection profiles, 3D volumes and well data (exploration shallow boreholes), combined with structural restorations 1D backstripping were used to study the post-salt evolution of Nordkapp Basin in Barents Sea. The took place above a pre-salt basement basin configuration affected by multiple rift events that influenced depositional facies thickness Pennsylvania...