First record of plant fossils from the Upper Muschelkalk (late Anisian, Middle Triassic) at Bruchsal (Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany)

Kustatscher, Evelyn; Plesker, Roland; Philipps, Steffen und Franz, Matthias (2019): First record of plant fossils from the Upper Muschelkalk (late Anisian, Middle Triassic) at Bruchsal (Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany). In: Zeitschrift der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Geowissenschaften, Bd. 170, Nr. 3-4: S. 321-338

Abstract

The first plant assemblage of the Upper Muschelkalk from Bruchsal was recovered from a single horizon of the basal Trochitenkalk Formation (late Anisian). The mono-dominated plant assemblage is dominated by vegetative and reproductive organs of conifers, associated with few dispersed root fragments and a female cycad scale. The fragmentary nature of the plant assemblage is ascribed to the transport from terrestrial growth environments and re-deposition in the Upper Muschelkalk Sea at its early transgressive stage. Both factors contributed to the reduction of more delicate, hygrophytic elements and concentration of coriaceous structures, and thus resulted in a taphonomic bias that substantially altered the fossil record. The mono-dominated assemblage is the result of a combination of xerophytic regional flora, arid to sub-arid palaeoclimatic conditions, and a taphonomic bias based on a long transport of the macroremains. Nonetheless, the Bruchsal plant assemblage is much more abundant and diverse than any previously described assemblage from the Muschelkalk.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Fakultät: Geowissenschaften > Department für Geo- und Umweltwissenschaften
• Themengebiete: 500 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik > 550 Geowissenschaften, Geologie
• ISSN: 1860-1804
• Sprache: Englisch