Early Permian Lagerstatte in China

Permian vegetational Pompeii from Inner Mongolia and its implications for landscape paleoecology and paleobiogeography of Cathaysia

1. Jun Wang (a,*)
2. Hermann W. Pfefferkorn (b,*)
3. Yi Zhang (c)
4. Zhuo Feng (d)

a. State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China;

b. Department of Earth and Environmental Science, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6316;

c. Institute of Palaeontology, Shenyang Normal University, Shenyang 110034, China; and

d. Yunnan Key Laboratory for Palaeobiology, Yunnan University, Kunming 650091, China

*. To whom correspondence may be addressed. E-mail: jun.wang@nigpas.ac.cn or hpfeffer@sas.upenn.edu

Abstract

Plant communities of the geologic past can be reconstructed with high fidelity only if they were preserved in place in an instant in time. Here we report such a flora from an early Permian (ca. 298 Ma) ash-fall tuff in Inner Mongolia, a time interval and area where such information is filling a large gap of knowledge. About 1,000 m2 of forest growing on peat could be reconstructed based on the actual location of individual plants. Tree ferns formed a lower canopy and either Cordaites, a coniferophyte, or Sigillaria, a lycopsid, were present as taller trees. Noeggerathiales, an enigmatic and extinct spore-bearing plant group of small trees, is represented by three species that have been found as nearly complete specimens and are presented in reconstructions in their plant community. Landscape heterogenity is apparent, including one site where Noeggerathiales are dominant. This peat-forming flora is also taxonomically distinct from those growing on clastic soils in the same area and during the same time interval. This Permian flora demonstrates both similarities and differences to floras of the same age in Europe and North America and confirms the distinct character of the Cathaysian floral realm. Therefore, this flora will serve as a baseline for the study of other fossil floras in East Asia and the early Permian globally that will be needed for a better understanding of paleoclimate evolution through time.

Now if only someone would find one for the LATE Permian. I am also stoked to see what tetrapod fossils come out of this.