Enhanced terrestrial input brings severe influence on modern coral reefs, accompanied with coral death and morphologic variation. Similar scenarios could be suspected for geological times, but reef coral resilience is still an enigma. Recently, researchers systematically documented the morphologic variation of reef corals and terrestrial sediment input during the Middle-Late Mississippian, and uncovered the relationship between size changes in reef corals and terrestrial input during the onset of the late Palaeozoic Ice Age (LPIA).
Recently, the Early Land Plant working group of Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (NIGPAS), led by Prof. XU Honghe, conducted a systematic paleoecological study based on plant fossils from the Lower Devonian of Guangxi. The related research results were published in an open-accessed journal of iScience.
Recently, the Late Paleozoic research group from Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (NIGAPS), Nanjing University and Yunnan University, have confirmed there were large-scale high-temperature wildfire combustion events through high-precision organic geochemical analysis of biomarker compounds polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, providing important insights into the collapse of terrestrial ecosystems and the changeover of vegetation during the Permian-Triassic (P-T) transition period.
Eurypterids (Arthropoda: Chelicerata), normally known as sea scorpions, are an important extinct group of Paleozoic chelicerate arthropods. Recently, researchers from China and England described a new Ordovician eurypterid, Archopterus anjiensis n. gen. n. sp., from the latest Ordovician (Hirnantian) Anji Biota of Zhejiang Province, South China. It represents the first unequivocal Ordovician and the oldest eurypterid recorded in China, adding new knowledge to early evolution of eurypterids in Gondwana.
An unusually well-preserved “Marine Dwarf World” from 462 million years ago was found at Castle Bank, Wales by a team led by the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The site comprises over 150 species, with many of miniaturized body size. It is one of the world’s most unexpected fossil sites.
New freshwater arthropod, Maldybulakia saierensis sp. nov., from the Silurion of the western Junggar, northwest China. The discovery of this species brings forward the earliest appearance of the Maldybulakia, previously known from the Devonian of Kazakhstan and eastern Australia, to the late Silurian. It is the oldest body fossil record of a putatively freshwater arthropod outside Laurussia, and greatly expands their palaeogeographical distribution.
Horodyskia fossils provide evidence to illuminate their biogenicity. This study reports evidence that Horodyskia may have attained its macroscopic size through the combination of coenocytism and simple clonal coloniality.
In this study, the herbaceous lycopsid Frenguellia eximia (Protolepidodendrales) is firstly discovered and its generic and specific diagnoses are emended based on newly-collected plant fossils. The related research results were published in the Journal of Palaeogeography.
Recently, a detailed study on sedimentary facies and the evolution of the maceriate reefs based on bio- and chemostratigraphic data for the Subaigou (Inner Mongolia) and Yunmengshan (Henan Province) sections by the Ph.D. student XIN Hao and his supervisor Prof. CHEN Jitao, along with Dr. GAO Biao from Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (NIGPAS), Prof. LI fei from Southwest Petroleum University, and Prof. Paul Myrow from Colorado College, USA.
By collecting the quadrats of three most prominent reefs in the Lazhuglung-Bangdagco region and preparing a total of 1085 thin sections, the reef structure and components are studied and reconstructed in detail.