Paleoenvironment - Science topic

I will suggest you contact the GEOLOGICAL agencies in your country. Better still oil companies on exploration and exploitation. They will be the best to provide your need s. Best of luck

Charophyte stems

See http://paleopolis.rediris.es/cg/15/15/index.html

The paleoenvironment of this deposit should be studied according to the facies associations. But according to you, and as well as the roundness of the grains, it is probably a glaciofluvial deposit.

You may think of studying palaeo-environment and how human have affected the same in yours study area, may be identified/ shortlisted base don previous literature. Similarly, in identified study area, you may study how climate change has taken place and further how man or more precisely anthropogenic activities have affected its pace.

Jifu Hao

I refer to these 2 RG questions:

Yopu may follow the advice given in the second question.

Mario:

You may also find this link useful.

Best

Syed

Developing International Geoarchaeology (DIG) is held every other year. https://www.developinginternationalgeoarchaeology.org/ The next conference is in 2021.

The Association for Environmental Archaeology (AEA) conference is held every year; see link in answer by Niklas Hausmann.

The European Geosciences Union (EGU) annual conference always has several sessions dedicated to geoarchaeology and quaternary environments. EGU 2020 will be held in Vienna, Austria. https://www.egu2020.eu/

The 2020 Landscape Archaeology Conference (LAC) will be held in Madrid. https://lac2020.cchs.csic.es/

Jean-Jacques Châteauneuf Thnak you very much for your comment. Best regards.

Which genus/species give date range for early Miocene in Mediterranen basin?

Hello,

sorry but the previous answer had nothing to do with the question! Read the question before you answer.

Carbonate rocks generally precipitate from seawater and there is a ratios of those elements in seawater. Now by determining those ratios in the precipitated carbonate rock and comparing to the seawater ratio we can deduce environmental parameters, such as pH, temperature, etc. This is thermodynamically controlled through the Distribution Coefficient "D".

One of the first papers ever written about that would be:

Thompson and Chow, 1955

T.G. Thompson, T.J. Chow The Sr/Ca ratio in carbonate secreting marine organisms

Deep-Sea Res., 3 (1955), pp. 20-30

Other papers:

Calculation of simultaneous isotopic and trace element variations during water-rock interaction with applications to carbonate diagenesis

JL Banner, GN Hanson - Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 1990 - Elsevier

[PDF] geoscienceworld.org

Diagenesis of carbonates in deep-sea sediments; evidence from Sr/Ca ratios and interstitial dissolved Sr (super 2+) data

PA Baker, JM Gieskes… - Journal of …, 1982 - pubs.geoscienceworld.org

Grazie Claudia per l'invito che terrò presente.

Paolo

Ti in limestones has implication for the detrital input into chemical sediments and for the weathering of this limestones. Further evidence would be speculative based on the scarcity of the information presented on the environment See: DILL, H.G. (2007) Grain morphology of heavy minerals from marine and continental placer deposits, with special reference to Fe -Ti oxides.- Sedimentary Geology DILL, H.G. and KLOSA, D. (2011) Heavy-mineral-based provenance analysis of Mesozoic continental-marine sediments at the western edge of the Bohemian Massif, SE Germany:With special reference to Fe-Ti minerals and the crystal morphology of heavy minerals. - International Journal of Earth Sciences, 100: 1497-1513.

S may help to describe the redox conditions depending on the valence state of sulphur is present in the limestone (sulphide, e.g. pyrite, sulphate, e.g. gypsum or anhydrite)

H.G.Dill

Thank you Jennifer for your help. Do you know the name of journal pl? Regards

KMT:

The reference is cited in the link provided in my answer.

Best

Syed

Marton:

You may like to have a look at this link for insights:

Best

Syed

Terry,

In the most striking example of nesting I notice that there there appears to be fine clastic sediment between each molt stage. The main set of nested valves in the previous set may be in opposite orientation to the largest one. Also, if you look at all of the material, most of it is not nested. It suggests to me that sometimes the valves are moved around a bit and they, occasionally, just fit together.

HCl is by far the easiest method if this acid does not alter other mineral phases such as clay minerals. You can also try to use warm formic, acetic or citric acid I presume.  

Hi Cody,

are you aware of the Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project which is part of CMIP6? A good reference for this, and yes it does have some useful figures, can be found here:

Kageyama, M., Braconnot, P., Harrison, S. P., Haywood, A. M., Jungclaus, J., Otto-Bliesner, B. L., Peterschmitt, J.-Y., Abe-Ouchi, A., Albani, S., Bartlein, P. J., Brierley, C., Crucifix, M., Dolan, A., Fernandez-Donado, L., Fischer, H., Hopcroft, P. O., Ivanovic, R. F., Lambert, F., Lunt, D. J., Mahowald, N. M., Peltier, W. R., Phipps, S. J., Roche, D. M., Schmidt, G. A., Tarasov, L., Valdes, P. J., Zhang, Q., and Zhou, T.: PMIP4-CMIP6: the contribution of the Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project to CMIP6, Geosci. Model Dev. Discuss., doi:10.5194/gmd-2016-106, in review, 2016.

If that does not have what you want, it will most definitely have the references of papers that will.

ciao,

Scott.

Dear Harald, thank you very much for this valluable information. I am also surching a facility were this examination can be done. So far i have found one comercial laboratory in Boston, USA.

Dear Raj Kumar, I advise you to find Nikolay Chumakov articles, who studied the problem of Precambrian glaciations for a long time. He is in the list of ResGate participants. His adress in RG: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nikolay_Chumakov. 

Some his articles you may find in attachment.

Best wishes

Thank Suman Sarker, these references are really so helpful.

Dear Amr Zaky.

In spite of low resolution, but the image is clear where the last chamber is inflated. It may be hypotype of Gaudryina laevigata. Be sure it is distributed in many samples and in notable number, to be defined as new var. of Gaudryina laevigata.  best regard

1. looks like as a bryozoan; 2-3 seems to be gastropods but I am not sure; 4. I think it is a spoge. All the best.

Dear Prof. Cesare Andrea Papazzoni,

Thank you for your interest. Now, I am preparing axial and equatorial sections of the specified species. After getting more detailed photos of it, i will contact with you for more cooperation.

Amr 

Dear Mohammad,

I would be not so sure. Outline of your fossils is somewhat resembling mytilloid bivalves, but the quality of photograph does not allow any definitive conclusion. Please, inspect the region of beak and possible rests of shell (is it calcitic, or carbonized ?)...  

Sorry, it is not my speciality

Indeed it looks like Anomozamites. Is it from the Shemshak Fm or Alburz moutain ? Anomozamites has been repeatdely reported from there. There is plenty of literature about the palaeobotany of this formation.

Dear Paul,

The true cycads, included in the order Cycadales( which have representation in extant floras) , and the Bennettitales ( restricted to the Mesozoic ) are components of an informal group, the cycadophytes. The Cycadales, which are still represented in extant floras have been vinculated to Paleozoic medullosaceae ( Pteridosperms ) and are believed to exist as a group from the early Permian ( Gao and Thomas 1989).

The Bennettitales present a wide range of morphological and structural

features and its evolutionary process is still in discussion (sometimes included in the flowering plants).

References:

Nixon et al., 1994;

Brenner et al., 2003

Doyle, 2006.

Stockey and Rothwell, 2003.

This is a very substantial question that cannot be answered with a few lines. Large numbers of Quaternarists have spent decades working on this question at a range of spatial and temporal scales and with diffrent types of environments (e.g. terrestrial vs marine vs ice), and every 4 years the community assembles for a conference (International Union for Quaternary Research, or INQUA) to present the latest findings. An example of a recent very successful approach has been the INTIMATE project undertaken in the North Atlantic region and also in Australasia (Australia and NZ), which have developed reconstructions over the past 30,000 years (please see literature) and well beyond that now for the NH INTIMATE project.

At the same time, advances in dating techniques are being developed so that reconstructions in different locations can be compared to the same time scale so that leads or lags can be evaluated with quantified uncertainty, and hence causal mechanisms for change can be assessed and tested. Transfer functions and models are also being employed using different 'sensors'  in different environments and applied to different archives.

I suggest you would gain a lot from reading/skimming an excellent text book such as Lowe, J.J. & Walker, M.J.C. "Reconstructing Quaternary environments", 3rd edition 2015 Routledge.

Follow these links and you can download atlases of paleomaps of India from the Cretaceous to the Neogene.

Bencaabane:

You would find this link useful:

Best

Syed

Hi Enrique

Have you tried Past (http://folk.uio.no/ohammer/past/) or EstimateS (http://viceroy.eeb.uconn.edu/EstimateS/index.html)? Past is easier to use but a little more limited. EstimateS allows greater flexibility.

Regards

Eddy Cannella

Hi Sobhi,

if you're not afraid with coding, you can go with R that comes with a load of packages for ternary plots, such as ggtern.

Otherwise Google is your friend for simpler Excel-based solutions!

Cheers

Thank you!

Jia:

This link with references therein should prove useful:

Best

Syed

It's not listed in the Fossilium Catalogus, which is usually fairly comprehensive. I can only think it is an unpublished (and therefore invalid) name. I have also tried looking for the species name in combination with another genbus, but again can find nothing.

The method used in palaeomagnetism was devised by Fisher (1953) (FISHER, R. 1953. Dispersion on a sphere. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A. Mathematical and Physical Sciences, 217, 295-305) In general after bedding-tilt correction, the selected directions group in two antipodal normal and reversed clusters on stereographic projections.  Fisher statistics (Fisher, 1953) are used to calculate the mean normal and reversed ChRM directions and their α95 (95% confidence angle).  The outliers and transitional directions positioned more than 45° from the normal and reversed means are then rejected. Should you use a different method to this you would need to be able to justify why, as this method is generally recognised and accepted by the palaeomag community.  Another method by Vandamme (1994) (VANDAMME, D. 1994. A new method to determine paleosecular variation. Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors, 85, 131-142.) could also be used to statistically reduce the error. keeping outliers in will often make a palaeomagnetic correlation more difficult to justify.  Hope that helps!

They could well be promising. It is necessary to remove a piece of the carbon layer, probably in the first instance using fine needles. They then have to be macerated with nitric acid probably with a little potassium chlorate added.  When they have turned a brown colour, they then need washing in ammonium hydroxide and then you should (with luck!) be left with the cuticle, which can be mounted on microscope slides for examination.  This is clearly a laboratory procedure and needs to be done with care.

To get larger pieces off, you need to macerate a piece of the fossil in hydrofluoric acid.  But that is nasty stuff and needs to be done by someone experienced in a lab specially set up with dealing with (and disposing of) that acid.

Hi, have a look at dinoflagellate cyst literature. Although you will not find many cysts in the salt deposits you will find distinct assemblages for both low and high salinity environments just prior to, during and just after the crisis. Here are some references I have in my database to start with:

Santarelli, A. Brinkhuis, H. Hilgen, F. J. Lourens, L. J. Versteegh, G. J. M. and Visscher, H., 1998. Orbital signatures in a Late Miocene dinoflagellate record from Crete (Greece). Marine Micropaleontology 33, 273-297.

Popescu, S. M. Dalesme, F. Jouannic, G. Escarguel, G. Head, M. J. Melinte-Dobrinescu, M. C. Sütő-Szentai, M. Bakrac, K. Clauzon, G. and Suc, J. P., 2009. Galeacysta etrusca complex: dinoflagellate cyst marker of Paratethyan influxes to the Mediterranean sea before and after the peak of the Messinian Salinity Crisis. Palynology 33, 105-134.

Londeix, L. Benzakour, M. Suc, J. P. and Turon, J. L., 2007. Messinian palaeoenvironments and hydrology in Sicily (Italy): The dinoflagellate cyst record. Geobios 40, 233-250.

Louwye, S. de Schepper, S. Laga, P. and Vandenberghe, N., 2007. The Upper Miocene of the southern North Sea Basin (northern Belgium): a palaeoenvironmental and stratigraphical reconstruction using dinoflagellate cysts. Geological Magazine 144, 33-52.

Check this:

SCHNEIDER, S. & BERNING, B. & BITNER, M.A. & CARRIOL, R.-P. & JÄGER, M. & KRIWET, J. & KROH, A. & WERNER, W. (2009)

A parautochthonous shallow marine fauna from the late Burdigalian (early Ottnangian) of Gurlarn (Lower Bavaria, SE Germany): macrofaunal inventory and paleoecology. Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Palaontologie, Abhandlungen, 254 (1-2): 63-103.

DOI: 10.1127/0077-7749/2009/0004

Jürgen 

Dear Paul and others. I think this is not a question of either, or. Species are always both: both are intrinsic to species; it strongly depends on the spatial and temporal scales you are looking at how useful the organism/species is for your stratigraphic or environmental purposes.

We live in a deterministic system where every moment is unique and never exactly repeats any previous moment. Furthermore, organisms interact with, and are part of this environment. Both evolution (by natural selection) and ecology are thus interwoven and two sides of a coin - one does not work without the other. Thus, at every given moment in time you have a unique configuration of life forms. Furthermore, each species has a unique set of parameters with respect to its niche (role in the ecosystem) and period of occurrence. I agree with everybody that both can only be elucidated through detailed, study of the organisms in space and time. Mostly, this is a lot of work.

Interestingly, for short time intervals, it is unlikely to see species getting extinct or new species appearing. All you see is changing (relative) abundances and they reflect the changing environment (Think e.g. of reconstruction changes in the order of millennia and shorter periods; like environmental change over the last 200 yrs). Organisms that appear or disappear from your (local) record in such situations are likely to do so because of a changing local environment and haven't become globally extinct or newly evolved.

With an increasing time window, species turnover (extinction and emergence of species) plays an increasingly important role. For environmental reconstruction this is a complicating issue since it interrupts the continuity of the system. You have to find out the ecology of the newcomers and to find a way to deal the loss of information due to extinction.

Despite these complications, each species has a first appearance, and as such is a marker for a given time interval. This interval may be entirely in the past or continue into the future. As such each species is also a biostratigraphic indicator.

Riddle and Hafner (chapter 7 in Biogeography in a changing world, Ed. Ebach and Tangney 2007) compiled a graph showing keyword search on ISI web of science using "phylogeograph" and geological time, and had produced some results for "Cretaceous". However, there are considerably more results for Holocene-Miocene than Oligocene to Cretaceous. Pleistocene has the modal peak. 

Although this does not answer why there are not many phylogeographic studies for Oligocene-Cretaceous events, which is a question I am also wondering, I hope this is helpful to you.

Hi Sofie

Late Triassic Dinoflagellate literature is substantial, I can recall one important publication with which you can start searching/requesting for more:

W.A.S. Sarjeant (1963), Nature, 199, 353-354. Fossil Dinoflagellates from Upper Triassic Sediments.

Also look at : Jafar and Tripathi (2001): Late Triassic palynomorphs from the Andaman-Nicobar Basin, Andaman Sea India. Modern Geology, v. 24, 205-219.

Best. 

As pointed out by Mark, the co-occurrence of Crocodilian-Dinosaurian remains can be ascribed to Taphonomic factors. Dinosaurs were widely distributed from high to low latitudes in a variety of environmental settings with or without Crocodiles, but lived close to shallow marine, riverine and lake margins. It is also remarkable that along with a few other life forms, Crocodiles survived the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction.

Dear Paul,

hard to say, because absolute precipitation values defining arid conditions are difficult/impossible to reconstruct for mesozoic terrestrial ecosystems. And finding bones in deposits connected to desert environmental settings means they have died there, but living and surviving over a long time is hard to prove. Best indicator for answering your question might be trace fossils (tracks, nests, etc.).

There are some papers about dinosaur presence in aeolian and similar deposits (regarded as desert deposits) from Mongolia (Gradziński & Jerzykiewicz 1974; Fastovsky et al., 1997; Saneyoshi et al., 2011) and the US (Riese et al., 2011). The last paper reconstruct dinosaur presence in desert wetlands, which are important ecosystems in terms of (palaeo)biogeography through the geological history (Pigati et al., 2014).

Best regards

Johannes

Gradziński & Jerzykiewicz 1974 Dinosaur- and mammal-bearing aeolian and associated deposits of the Upper Cretaceous in the Gobi Desert (Mongolia). Sedimentary Geology 12(4): 249-278.

Fastovsky et al., 1997 The Paleoenvironments of Tugrikin-Shireh (Gobi Desert, Mongolia) and Aspects of the Taphonomy and Paleoecology of Protoceratops (Dinosauria: Ornithishichia). Palaios 12: 59-70.

Saneyoshi et al., 2011 Trace fossils on dinosaur bones from Upper Cretaceous eolian deposits in Mongolia: Taphonomic interpretation of paleoecosystems in ancient desert environments. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology

 311: 38–47.

Riese et al., 2011 Synapsid Burrows and Associated Trace Fossils in the Lower Jurassic Navajo Sandstone, Southeastern Utah, U.S.A., Indicates a Diverse Community Living in a Wet Desert Ecosystem. Journal of Sedimentary Research

81: 299-321.

Pigati et al., 2014 Desert wetlands in the geologic record. Earth-Science Reviews 132: 67-81.

Dear Dr.Bulot, dear Dr.Fuchs

Thank you very much for your help!

Dear Umair,

attached here you can find an article on the mentioned taxa from Himalaya.

Regards,

Lorenzo

thanks all

Can you upload the image of higher size?

Dear Miroslav, 

yes, we have some macrofossil data from a Hallstatt period well at Crévéchamps (Meurthe-et-Moselle, Lorraine, France) and there are few other Hallstatt period wells from eastern France studied archaeobotanically by Françoise Toulemonde. These are macrofossil data, but multiproxy analysis of Hallstatt period wells are still lacking...

Let me know what you need for comparison.

Kind regards

Julian

In warm seas diatoms may not survive during diagenesis - I've never encountered diatoms in my own Paleogene material. However, I note in your paper, that your smallest size fraction is 0.2 mm. This is too large for all but perhaps the largest diatoms. Also for foraminiferal studies you should better use smaller size fractions, at least 125 microns or better even (when preservation permits) 63 micron. The diversity of your assemblages will increase significantly. Absence of planktic forams is no surprise in a very shallow environment, but you may find them also in the smaller size fraction, possibly washed in from the open sea.

Dear Mr. Hassan,

I agree with Dr. Towe, that the anomalies of Ce and Eu play a significant part, particularly Ce which responds to redox changes that are fundamental in the mobilization (organo-metallic complexes), thransort (chelat complex) and concentration of iron. You will find a lot of case studies of  these anomalies, also in papers dealing with a different set of elements or metal deposits. I would like to refer also to the classical studies covering Fe-bearing ochres of the deep sea, BIF and ironstone deposits quoted in Maynard (Geochemistry of Sedimentary Ore Deposits). He listed some of the REE elements. Investigations of the isotopes should not only focus on oxygen but also on carbon which is present in the afore-mentioned carriers of Fe and also in one of the most important Fe host minerals siderite (+ ferroan dolomite), both of which show up in  ironstones too.

Best regards

Harald G. Dill

Dear Prof. John Andeson.

Thank you for providing the papers on MIS 3 sea level changes. I have read some papers written by you and your colleagues. You and your colleagues have done some nice work on MIS 3 sea level recorded in the coastal ocean area.

Cheers, Fei.

Charles, this may not be a named trace fossil, but it is certainly interesting. It appears to be a feeding trace made by an appendage or appendages leading out from one place, which means that the tracemaker could have been larger than the width of the individual branches. I suspect that the maker was bilaterally symmetrical, based on the rough symmetry of the trace on a SW-NE axis, but the symmetry isn't good enough to be entirely convincing. If you have additional specimens, that would help; patterns can't emerge from one specimen. -- Incidentally, if you suspect that a deposit-feeding bivalve is the maker, then you should consult the literature on Hillichnus lobosensis. That trace is a complex burrow that incorporates locomotion as well as deposit-feeding, but you might gain insight from it. Another source would be Schaefer's famous book on North Sea actuopaleontology (Ecology and Palaeoecology of Marine Environments, Irmgard Oertel, trans., and G. Y. Craig, ed., Chicago, 1972).

If you are interested into the rules of CCA plot interpretation, you could complete the Oksanen's slides by reading the following paper  :

Canonical correspondence analysis and related multivariate methods in aquatic ecology

by Cajo ter Braak and Piet Verdonschot

Aquatic Sciences 57/3, 1995, pp. 255-289.

DOI: 10.1007/BF00877430 

available at : http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00877430#page-1

Oldy but goldy... Cajo ter Braak is the father of CCA.

Hi, my friend,

    thanks for your replay, I am interesting about the nature profile in Changjiang River delta now, so it is very hard to found the relation about human and the palynology. Expecially, for two parts, the firstly, how to find the species of pollen as a proxy of human actively. The secondly, how to identify that  the pollen is local resource. Because you know as huge river, the Changjiang rever always take so much materials to the river mouth. So It is very important for identify that is come form the plain or from the mid-up stream.

Dear Shouxian,

I think these are diagenetic structures, not of mechanical [hailstone] origin. If the pits or pans would be created before the dark mudstone, than the dark mudstone lamins should fill pits horizontally. When you look closer it is evident that the dark mudstone lamins lay parallel to the undulating surface of pits. This observation is also applicable to the next, overlying layers which also follow the undulating surface of the pits. Thus, the whole rock complex were immersed or squeezed giving different thickness of the dark mudstone. Maybe is the similar process as the genesis of the nodular limestones but less expressed.

I would suggest you to find shelf deposits, such as characterized by hummocky cross-stratification, and typical turbidite deposits characterizing continental slope and even deeper environments first. Making a stratigraphic column. And then looking for the suitable shelf break or shelf margin deposit form the transition between the identified shelf and continental slope deposits. While making decision, make sure that the ichnological evidence is also supportive.

Thank you Ana-Maria Hereş for your answer.

Hello Paul,

I concur with the alluvial setting. In any case, I think that interpretations would go an step further with data about the geometry of the sandstone and conglomerate bodies (tabular or lenticular?), the relative abundance of the sandstone, conglomerate and mudstone (the "clay drapes" you mention mean that mudstones are subordinate?) and the vertical arrangement (though you said there is not any cyclical stacking pattern). Also, the fabric of conglomerates could give insights into the transport and sedimentation mechanisms (fluidal flow deposits, gravity flow deposits?)

To me, a striking point is the absence of root traces and paleosols. I would say that this suggests that high sedimentation rates/channel(?) mobility impeded long term colonization by plants. Maybe this would rather point to an alluvial fan or a braided river system.

Another puzzling point is the monotony of sandstone facies. Just planar cross-bedded units. Maybe a look at Miall´s models of alluvial channels as a first approach would be fine.

You could look at the model simulations that were carried out as part of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) (http://cmip-pcmdi.llnl.gov/cmip5/). In particular, the "last millenium" experiment was completed by several modelling groups and covers a period of 1000 years (from 850 to 1850). The data is freely available. It's not 2k , but could 1k be enough for your purpose?