The Hauterivian–Aptian Isachsen Formation at Glacier Fiord, Axel Heiberg Island, in the Sverdrup Basin of Canadian Arctic Archipelago was deposited contemporaneous with initiation High Large Igneous Province (HALIP). New palynological biostratigraphy and paleoenvironmental reconstruction, coordination emerging geochronology HALIP igneous rocks, permits exploration effects volcanism on vegetatio...

We investigate the present-day orogenic architecture of Pyrenean-Cantabrian junction corresponding to a boundary between inverted rift segments using seismic interpretation, field data, and borehole information. This was formerly attributed major NNE-SSW striking Pamplona transfer fault segmenting Basque-Cantabrian Mauléon basins during both rifting convergence. Our study shows that results fro...

Eudicots, the most diverse of the three major clades of living angiosperms, are first recognized in the latest Barremian-earliest Aptian. All Early Cretaceous forms appear to be related to species-poor lineages that diverged before the rise of core eudicots, which today comprise more than 70% of angiosperm species. Here, we report the discovery of a well-preserved flower, Caliciflora mauldinens...

Morphological phylogenies stand in a major conflict with molecular hypotheses regarding the phylogeny of Cryptodira, the most diverse and widely distributed clade of extant turtles. However, molecular hypotheses are often considered a better estimate of phylogeny given that it is more consistent with the stratigraphic and geographic distribution of extinct taxa. That morphology fails to reprodu...

Sandownids are a group of Early Cretaceous-Paleocene turtles that for several decades have been only known by cranial and very fragmentary postcranial elements. Here I report and describe the most complete sandownid turtle known so far, including articulated skull, lower jaw and postcranial elements, from the Early Cretaceous (upper Barremian-lower Aptian, >120 Ma), Paja Formation, Villa de Ley...

Detrital zircon U-Pb ages for 30 Late Jurassic and Cretaceous sandstones from the Eastern Province of eastern New Zealand, combined with previously-published geochronological and palaeontological data, constrain the time of deposition in the Pahau and Waioeka terranes of the Cretaceous accretionary margin of Zealandia, and their adjacent cover strata. The zircon age patterns also constrain poss...

Disarticulated and incomplete remains from a new diminutive ornithopod are described. They come from the Cameros Basin in the north of Spain and were collected from the red clays of the Castrillo de la Reina Formation, ranging from Upper Barremian to Lower Aptian. The new ornithopod described here is slender and one of the smallest ever reported. An up-to-date phylogenetic analysis recovers thi...

Fossils from the “Jehol Biota” have been studied for nearly 90 years, and the term “Jehol Biota” has been extensively used and is well known today, largely thanks to the discovery of feathered dinosaurs, angiosperms, and numerous other exceptionally preserved fossils in the Lower Cretaceous of northeastern China. Ironically, however, what exactly the Jehol Biota represents and how it is defined...

The first flowering plant fossils occur as rare, undiverse pollen grains in the Early Cretaceous (Valanginian-Hauterivian). Angiosperms diversified slowly during the Barremian-Aptian but rapidly during the Albian-Cenomanian. By the end of the Cretaceous, at least half of the living angiosperm orders were present, and angiosperms were greater than 70% of terrestrial plant species globally. The r...