New data on the macroflora of the basal Rotliegend group (Remigiusberg Formation; Gzhelian) in the Saar-Nahe basin (SW-Germany)

Abstract

New discoveries of fossil plant macroremains from the Remigiusberg Formation (lowermost Rotliegend group) considerably enlarge our knowledge about the flora of the basal-most part of the lithostratigraphically defined Rotliegend group within the Saar-Nahe Basin in SW-Germany. Most taxa are plants that grew in relatively humid habitats near rivers, or around margins of the lake in whose sediments the plant macroremains were found. This, together with previously reported palynological data, suggests that the wetlands in which these plants grew were large enough to act as taphonomical barriers against the deposition of plant macroremains from dryer habitats. Based on some of the new taxa, it is also possible to constrain the base of the biostratigraphic Autunia conferta zone in this basin, a task that was not possible before, due to the scarcity of macrofloristic data from the basal Rotliegend group. The new data provide evidence that the upper part of the Remigiusberg Formation is probably not older than late Gzhelian. This corresponds to earlier biostratigraphic interpretations based on palaeozoological remains.

Aridification across the Carboniferous–Permian transition in central equatorial Pangea: The Catalan Pyrenean succession (NE Iberian Peninsula)

“…Charbonnier, 2014). Other similar plant assemblages supporting a Stephanian C age for Coll de Sas floras are those from the Saar-Nahe basin of Germany (Kerp and Fichter, 1985;Uhl and Jasper, 2016), the Czech Republic basins (Opluštil et al, 2013(Opluštil et al, , 2017a(Opluštil et al, , 2017b, as well as from the further western Pangean equatorial basins (e.g., New…”

Paleoecological and paleoenvironmental interpretation of three successive macrofloras and palynofloras from the Kola Switch locality, lower Permian (Archer City Formation, Bowie Group) of Clay County, Texas, USA

“…Taxa from seasonally dry habitats occur throughout, including a diversity of callipterids and conifers. At the level of major group composition, these floras are quite similar to both Kola Switch and Sanzenbacher, but with a notable lack of Sphenopteris germanica; this latter species has since been reported from the lowermost Rotliegend (Uhl and Jasper 2016). In a quantitative study of two Lower and two Upper Rotliegend floras, Uhl and Lausberg (2008), who used the same methods of quantification as in the Kola Switch and Sanzenbacher studies, found conifers of various kinds to dominate three of the floras and callipterids to dominate the fourth.…”

“…Further comparison can be made to Rotliegend floras of Europe. The basic composition of such floras is summed up in the work of Barthel (2009) in addition to several summaries of more site-specific studies (e.g., Barthel 1976Barthel , 2016Lausberg and Kerp 2000;Šimůnek and Martínek 2009;Barthel et al 2010;Uhl and Jasper 2016). In the following, we focus on only two further summary papers, those of Kerp and Fichter (1985) and Uhl and Lausberg (2008), which examine broader ecological aspects of Lower and Upper Rotliegend floras in the Saar-Nahe Basin.…”