Abundant, well-preserved Mid Devonian plants were reported from the Hujiersite Formation, West Junggar, Xinjiang, northwest China. However, on account of active tectonic in the Devonian West Junggar, most Devonian sections are not continuous.
In the resent study by Professor XU Honghe from Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and his colleagues, Devonian spores were systematically studied from four sections (251 Hill, G217 Highway, Hujiersite and Gannaren) in West Junggar, North Xinjiang, China. All four sections belong to, or are equivalent to, the Upper Member of the Hujiersite Formation, from which abundant plant macrofossils have also been reported. These spores enable us, for the first time, to date these fossil plant beds as from late Emsian to Frasnian in age. The plant localities are all from a Devonian volcanic terrain and have a lycopsid-dominant flora. These lycopsid plants have near global Devonian distributions and are hence the most mobile elements among the contemporary floras. The West Junggar shows a different palynological assemblage from that of the East Junggar and is palaeogeographically significant.
The paper was published in Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology (Xu, H.-H., Marshall, J.E.A., Wang, Y., Zhu, H.-C., Berry, C.M., Wellman, C.H. 2014. Devonian spores from an intra-oceanic volcanic arc, West Junggar (Xinjiang, China) and the palaeogeographical significance of the associated fossil plant beds. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology. 206: 10-22).
