BACKGROUND Archosauria and their closest relatives, the non-archosaurian archosauriforms, diversified in the Early and Middle Triassic, soon after the end-Permian extinction. This diversification is poorly documented in most Lower and Middle Triassic rock sequences because fossils of early groups of archosauriforms are relatively rare compared to those of other amniotes. The early Middle Triass...

Accelerated biotic turnover during the Late Triassic has led to the perception of an end-Triassic mass extinction event, now regarded as one of the ‘‘big five’’ extinctions. Close examination of the fossil record reveals that many groups thought to be affected severely by this event, such as ammonoids, bivalves and conodonts, instead were in decline throughout the Late Triassic, and that other ...

Coprolites are the least studied and most under-sampled vertebrate trace fossils. They are very common in some Triassic localities. We recognize six new coprolite ichnotaxa: Alococopros triassicus, A. indicus, Saurocopros bucklandi, Liassococopros hawkinsi, Malericopros matleyi and Falcatocopros oxfordensis. The distribution of coprolite ichnotaxa is: Permian Hyronocopros amphipolar and Heterop...

Following the end-Permian extinction, terrestrial vertebrate diversity recovered by the Middle Triassic, and that diversity was now dominated by reptiles. However, those reptilian clades, including archosaurs and their closest relatives, are not commonly found until ~30 million years post-extinction in Late Triassic deposits despite time-calibrated phylogenetic analyses predicting an Early Tria...

This paper presents a new interpretation of the geometry of Triassic alignment of J. Sidi Mahdi –J. Zitoun in Medjerda Valley Plain (Northern Tunisia) based on detailed analysis of gravity and seismic reflection data. The main results of gravity analysis do not show a distinguish gravity anomaly over Triassic evaporites bodies. The positive gravity anomaly seems to be related to the entire stru...

BACKGROUND Ichthyosaurs were an important group of Mesozoic marine reptiles and existed from the Early Triassic to the early Late Cretaceous. Despite a great diversity in body shapes and feeding adaptations, all share greatly enlarged eyes, an elongated rostrum with numerous conical teeth, and a streamlined body. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Based on new material from China and the restudy ...

The Great Bank of Guizhou (GBG) is an isolated Late Permian to Late Triassic carbonate platform in the Nanpanjiang Basin of Guizhou Province, southwest China. A faulted syncline exposes a cross section of the platform margin, including a well-preserved Anisian (earliest Middle Triassic) reef complex approximately 1 km wide and 800 meters thick. Geochronologic constraints from associated basin-m...

rocks of the Stuhuni and King Salmon Groups; a pre-.Middlm: Triassic unconformity is found througbmt the North American Cordillera (Read and Okulitch, 1977, Siberling, 1973:. In the Stikine Terrane, late Triassic volcanic rocks ar: dominantly fragmental andcommonly alkalic. Based on bul:: rock chemistry, both extensional, ba:k-arc, and Fore-ar: tectonic settings have been suggested tor these r...

Cycle stratigraphic and magnetostratigraphic analyses of a -5000-m-thick composite section obtained by scientific oring in the Newark rift basin of eastern North America provide a high-resolution astronomically calibrated geomagnetic polarity timescale (GPTS) spanning over 30 m.y. of the Late Triassic and earliest Jurassic. Only normal polarity is found in -1000 m of interbedded volcanics and c...

The study area is situated in the Middle part of the Tabas Block. It contains outcrops of rocks that formed along longitudinal faults in Early Cimmerian orogenic phase. The basin subsided along these faults from the Late Triassic to Early Cretaceous, which include two sedimentary cycles. A sedimentary cycle, related to Upper Triassic to Bajocian is known as Shemshak group. Another sedimentary c...