Early Jurassic silicified woods from Carapace Nunatak, South Victoria Land, Antarctica

International audience The Jurassic vegetation of Antarctica remains poorly known and, while there have been several reports of large fossil trees from that time period across the continent, detailed anatomical studies of their wood are extremely scarce. Here we describe new silicified woods of Earl...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Fossil Record
Main Authors: Toumoulin, Agathe, Decombeix, Anne-Laure, Harper, Carla, J, Serbet, Rudolph
Other Authors: Masaryk University Brno (MUNI), Botanique et Modélisation de l'Architecture des Plantes et des Végétations (UMR AMAP), Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (Cirad)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD France-Sud )-Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE)-Université de Montpellier (UM), University of Kansas Kansas City, Trinity College Dublin
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: HAL CCSD 2023
Subjects:
Agathoxylon
Araucariaceae
Brachyoxylon
conifers
fossil fungi
gymnosperms
Hirmeriellaceae
Mesozoic
[SDE.BE]Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology
[SDV.BID.EVO]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Biodiversity/Populations and Evolution [q-bio.PE]
Carapace Nunatak
Victoria Land
Antarc*
Antarctica
Online Access:https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-04105951
https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-04105951/document
https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-04105951/file/Toumoulin_etal_Fossil_Record_2023_26_1.pdf
https://doi.org/10.3897/fr.26.102570
Description
Summary:International audience The Jurassic vegetation of Antarctica remains poorly known and, while there have been several reports of large fossil trees from that time period across the continent, detailed anatomical studies of their wood are extremely scarce. Here we describe new silicified woods of Early Jurassic (probably Toarcian) age from Carapace Nunatak, South Victoria Land. The genera Agathoxylon and Brachyoxylon are formally recognized for the first time in the Jurassic of Antarctica. The preservation of the woods is imperfect, which is likely explained by the presence in some of the specimens of fungi, whose anatomical structures are described in detail. Combined with previous reports of pollen, leaves, and cones from South and North Victoria Land, these new specimens support the presence of several conifer families in the Early Jurassic floras of the region.

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