A new basal sphenacodontid synapsid, represented by an anterior portion of a mandible, demonstrates for the first time the presence of amniotes in the largest European Permo−Carboniferous basin, the Saar−Nahe Basin. The new taxon, Cryptovenator hirschbergeri gen. et sp. nov., is autapomorphic in the extreme shortness and robustness of the lower jaw, with moderate heterodonty, including the abse...

The Fistulipora microparallela (Yang and Lu, 1962) species is described for the first time from the Sakmarian deposits of the Sarab section in Lut Block, Central Iran. This species has been reported only from the Permian (Cisuralian-Guadalupian) of the Qilianshan and Kankerin formations, and the Baliqliq Group (Upper Carboniferous to Lower Permian) of Western Xinjiang, China.

The highest rates of global organic carbon burial (up to 6.5 × 10 mol/Myr) over the past half billion years occurred during the Carboniferous–Permian (330–260 Myr), in large part because of the accumulation and burial of peat in broad tropical lowland basins (1). Atypical rates of organic carbon sequestration led to low atmospheric pCO2 and anomalously high pO2 (Fig. 1), which in turn triggered...