Composition and Structure of an in Situ Middle Pennsylvanian Peat-Forming Plant Assemblage Buried in Volcanic Ash, Radnice Basin (Czech Republic)

Opluštil, Stanislav; Pšenička, Josef; Libertı́n, Milan; Bek, Jiřı́; Dašková, Jiřina; Šimůnek, Zbyněk; Drábková, Jana

doi:10.2110/palo.2008.p08-128r

Cited by 45 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…(See SI Text and Table S1 for a brief comparison with similarly preserved floras.) In modern plant ecology, the minimum area to obtain statistically meaningful data to characterize forest phytocoenoses ranges from 200 to 500 m 2 (5,6,20). The counted area at Wuda is over 1,000 m 2 in entirety (Fig.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Wang

Pfefferkorn

Zhang

et al. 2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

138

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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 m 2 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.coal-swamp plant community | plant paleoecology | volcanic ash-fall tuff | Wuda

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Wang

Pfefferkorn

Zhang

et al. 2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

138

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“…Their height is estimated to vary mostly between 1 and 3 m. Absence of cones may suggest they were still immature. In one of the previous excavations (O1, Opluštil et al 2009b), however, one of larger and naked Stylocalamites axes bore cones Palaeostachya distachya. Near the middle of the excavation grew a subarborescent lycopsid, Spencerites havlenae, which belongs to a common understory element of the Ovčín coal forest.…”

Section: B Amentioning

confidence: 90%

“…Therefore we used for these plants an allometric equation for "woody" species. Another parameter, adopted from modern ecological studies is estimation of so-called minimal area, which is minimal area that can be considered to represent the plant assemblage and that captures all the characteristic species (Cain 1938, Kent & Coker 1992, Opluštil et al 2009b). The area is usually estimated by graphing the number of species against a series of progressively larger quadrat areas, successively doubled in size.…”

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confidence: 99%

T0 peat-forming plant assemblage preserved in growth position by volcanic ash-fall: A case study from the Middle Pennsylvanian of the Czech Republic

Opluštil¹,

Pšenička²,

Bek³

et al. 2014

Bull. Geosci.

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A Middle Pennsylvanian tuff bed (the Bělka bed) in the roof of the Lower Radnice Coal bears T 0 peat-forming vegetation preserved in growth position. This vegetation has been studied in detail at the 12 hectares large Ovčín coal deposit in the southern part of the Radnice Basin. Documentation of the fossil record in six excavations and that previously collected in the former opencast mine allowed for a detailed reconstruction of the local peat-forming lepidodendrid-cordaitalean forest structured into well-developed stories. It consists of about 33 species, which colonized the occasionally flooded planar peat swamp precursor of the Lower Radnice Coal. The canopy story of this vegetation was dominated by Lepidodendron (Paralycopodites) simile, L. lycopodioides, Lepidophloios acerosus and Cordaites borassifolius. They formed a relatively dense canopy, locally interrupted with significant gaps allowing development of a rich groundcover that together with liana-like plants represents the most diverse part of the forest. A less diverse understory composed of calamites, medullosan pteridosperms and Psaronius tree ferns displays a patchy distribution pattern presumably related to density of the canopy. The minimal area that sufficiently represents the pattern of this forest phytocoenosis is estimated to be about 200 m 2 , although lower stories are well represented even within much smaller areas of about 60 m 2 . Slight heterogeneity in the population density of dominant taxa (Cordaites vs. lepidodendrid lycopsids) was documented across the Ovčín coal deposit. The fossil record of the Bělka tuff bed also indicates that the coal-forest colonizing the peat swamp prior the generation of forest killed by volcanic ash fall, was destroyed, presumably due to long-lasting flooding and thus suggests that catastrophic events were probably a relatively common part of the evolution of peat-forming Pennsylvanian successions.• Key words: Pennsylvanian, T 0 plant assemblage, coal forests, volcanic ash beds, Radnice Basin.

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“…On the opposite, environments with fast accumulation of sediments are potential sites where vegetation can be buried in situ fast enough to preserve not only morphology but also life forms including the epiphytic one. This is especially the case of so-called T 0 horizons, which preserve T 0 plant assemblages (Gastaldo et al 1995(Gastaldo et al , 2004(Gastaldo et al , 2006Jonson 2007;DiMichele & Gastaldo 2008;Opluštil et al 2009aOpluštil et al , 2009b buried in a geological instant, i.e. virtually frozen in time.…”

Section: B Cmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…1D). The first set of excavations is known as the "Ovčín Excavations 1, 2 and 3" (O1, O2 in July and October 2002, O3 in 2003) (Opluštil et al 2009b). The second group of excavations was located about 150 meters to the east, and were known as "Sternberg Excavation 1" (S1 in 2005), "Sternberg Excavation 2" (S2 in 2006) (Opluštil et al 2009a) and a previously unreported "Sternberg Excavation 3" (S3 in 2009).…”

Section: Two Examples Of Potential Epiphytes From a Pennsylvanian Volmentioning

confidence: 99%

The epiphytic plants in the fossil record and its example from in situ tuff from Pennsylvanian of Radnice Basin (Czech Republic).

Pšenička¹,

Opluštil²

2013

Bull. Geosci.

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Recognizing true epiphytes in the fossil record is still a major problem for palaeobotanists. Many indirect examples of evidence of epiphytic plants were previously published in palaeobotanical papers, especially from Pennsylvanian and Cenozoic times. Due to the special life strategy of epiphytes, which depends on presence of other plants for growth (so-called phorophytes), their preservation in the fossil record depends on the taphonomy of these phorophytes. Generally, the main factors for preservation of epiphytes are the type of environment in which the phorophyte grew, the habit-type of the epiphyte, the position of the epiphytes on the phorophyte, and the rapidity of burial. The ideal facies for preservation of epiphytes are in situ volcanic ash-fall deposits where plants were very quickly buried in the original place of growth. Vegetation buried in such deposits represents a single T 0 horizon that reveals the spatial distribution of plants including potential epiphytes. Examples of two such plants are described in this paper from middle Moscovian ash-fall deposits in the Radnice Basin (Czech Republic). Both are Selaginella-like plants, which are informally named Selaginella sp. 1 and Selaginella sp. 2. Selaginella sp. 1 is interpreted as an epiphyte that probably grew in the leafy distal parts of the tree-top branches of arborescent lycopsids. Selaginella sp. 2 probably represents an epiphyte that grew on the trunks of the arborescent gymnosperm Cordaites borassifolius or the lycopsid Lepidodendron (Paralycopodites) simile. The interpretation is based on a set of subjective and/or indirect evidence. Direct evidence of epiphytes in the fossil record is still lacking. This paper documents for the first time herbaceous fossil lycopsids as epiphytes, as well as epiphytes described from three-dimensional compression material. •

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Composition and Structure of an in Situ Middle Pennsylvanian Peat-Forming Plant Assemblage Buried in Volcanic Ash, Radnice Basin (Czech Republic)

Cited by 45 publications

References 36 publications

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

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

T0 peat-forming plant assemblage preserved in growth position by volcanic ash-fall: A case study from the Middle Pennsylvanian of the Czech Republic

The epiphytic plants in the fossil record and its example from in situ tuff from Pennsylvanian of Radnice Basin (Czech Republic).

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