3-D microstructural analysis of 30 porphyroblastic samples from the Variscan orogen in NW-Iberia has revealed four sets of inclusion trails with distinctive geographic trends and relative timing. The chronological and orientational consistency of these microstructures provides a reference frame for the correlation of macroscopic structural successions. The two younger inclusion trail sets corre...

This study considers the flux of radioactivity in flowback fluid from shale gas development in three areas: the Carboniferous, Bowland Shale, UK; the Silurian Shale, Poland; and the Carboniferous Barnett Shale, USA. The radioactive flux from these basins was estimated, given estimates of the number of wells developed or to be developed, the flowback volume per well and the concentration of K (p...

A recent description and analysis of an imprint fossil from the Carboniferous concluded that it was made by a mayfly landing in sediment at the edge of water. Here, I reanalyze that trace fossil and supply experimental evidence regarding wing traces and behavior. The thorax of the trace maker lacked structures characteristic of mayflies, but closely matches a modern neopteran insect family (Tae...

Roots and shoots of plant bodies develop from meristems-cell populations that self-renew and produce cells that undergo differentiation-located at the apices of axes [1].The oldest preserved root apices in which cellular anatomy can be imaged are found in nodules of permineralized fossil soils called coal balls [2], which formed in the Carboniferous coal swamp forests over 300 million years ago...

The Carboniferous–Triassic period was an important stage of global sea–land transformation, with coal formation in the Carboniferous, biological extinction at end Permian, and drought Triassic. MS-1 well Mosuowan High Junggar Basin is deepest drilled Northwestern China. In this paper, we investigate sedimentary environment climate evolution area central during Late Carboniferous–Early Permian b...

From 27 (out of a total of 29) sites a characteristic pre-folding magnetization has been obtained with D = 150 °, I = +20 °, a g s = 3 . 5 °, and paleopole at 38°N, 132°E. However, we conclude from a bedding-error test and a conglomerate test, as well as from descriptions of the hematite as a replacement mineral, that the magnetization is a (late) post-depositional chemical remanent magnetizati...

Nocturnality is widespread among extant mammals and often considered the ancestral behavioural pattern for all mammals. However, mammals are nested within a larger clade, Synapsida, and non-mammalian synapsids comprise a rich phylogenetic, morphological and ecological diversity. Even though non-mammalian synapsids potentially could elucidate the early evolution of diel activity patterns and enr...

Unusual fossil macrofloras from South America (Peru, Bolivia, Brazil), Africa (Niger), India, and Australia are distinctly different from both the Early and Late Carboniferous floras of Gondwana. These floras can be correlated with each other based on macrofloral and palynologic composition, and dated as Late Visean to earliest Serpukhovian through palynologic data from several floras and isoto...

Lepidodendron hickii is tlie only anatomically preserved Carboniferous lepidodendrid with leaf cushions referable to the compression-based L. aculeatum, the type of Lepidodendron. Historically Lepidodendron has come to encompass several kinds of arborescent lycopods with distinctive vegetative and reproductive morphologies, among which no truly intermediate forms are known. These include totall...

Department of Geology, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio 45221-0013, USA Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, Texas 76019, USA Center for Applied Energy Research, 2540 Research Park Drive, Lexington, Kentucky 40511, USA Institute for Geology and Mineralogy, University of Cologne, D-50674 Cologne, Germany Barrett Honors College, Ar...