Palaeoenvironment of the Late Triassic (Rhaetian) and Early Jurassic (Hettangian) Mecsek Coal Formation (south Hungary): implications from macro- and microfloral assemblages

Abstract

The changes in early Mesozoic land plant communities, their vegetation patterns and vegetation dynamics are still only poorly understood, mainly because of the lack of integrated studies on fossil plant macroremains and palynomorphs. The Early Jurassic represents a major recovery phase of marine and terrestrial ecosystems after one of the biggest mass extinction events in Earth's history at the end of the Triassic period. The present study focuses on the southern Hungarian Mecsek Coal Formation of Late Triassic (Upper Rhaetian) to Early Jurassic (Hettangian) age, which has yielded unique plant fossils and diverse palynomorph assemblages which are used to study floral changes within a phase of ecological recovering. The Hungarian coal-bearing series of the Mecsek Mountains are seen to represent key sections for analysing regional changes in land plant communities and also to detect the influence of global climatic change. Furthermore, the cyclic sedimentation of the Mecsek Coal Formation enables a high time resolution of the processes, thus leading to a better understanding of the "beat" in floral changes.

Palynology of the Kazanian stratotype section (Permian, Russia): palaeoenvironmental and palaeoclimatic implications

“…Such changes inferred from palynomorph assemblages, reflecting the vegetation of a specific area, are recently detected in many other Permian and Triassic settings (e.g. Ruckwied et al 2008;Götz et al 2011;Götz et al 2013;Götz and Ruckwied 2014), and climatic signals recorded in palynomorph assemblages have been recently also successfully applied to cross basin correlation ). The new palynological data from the Kazanian stratotype section show the potential to perform high resolution palaeoclimatic reconstructions based on changes in the palynomorph assemblages.…”

The Triassic to Early Jurassic palynological record of the Tarim Basin, China

“…They also potentially represent local vegetation responses to the T-J extinction, although spore/pollen peaks are typically recognised within or above extinction event intervals (e.g. Ruckwied et al 2008;Ruckwied and Götz 2009;Larsson 2009;Götz et al 2009Götz et al , 2011Vajda et al 2013;Vajda and Bercovici 2014).…”

A record of climatic changes in the Triassic palynological spectra from Poland

“…These plants to gether with co ni fers are in cluded into the mid and upper can opy hab i tat (Petersen et al, 2013). Scarce Pinaceae and Cheirolepidaceae oc curred in dry hin ter land and coastal en vi ron ments (e.g., Kürschner, 2010;Götz et al, 2011;Bonis and Kürschner, 2012). A sig nif i cant change in flo ral com po sition is ob served in re la tion to the Late Norian biocenoses strongly dom i nated by gym no sperms Cheirolepidaceae.…”

“…39). The change of cli mate from dry to wet in the Early Rhaetian was doc u mented in many ar eas of Eu rope (e.g., Ahlberg, 2002;Berra et al, 2010;Michalík et al, 2010;Götz et al, 2011;Brañski, 2011Brañski, , 2014Haas et al, 2012;Lintnerová et al, 2013;Krupnik et al, 2014;Pieñkowski et al, 2014). The au thor's ob ser va tions do not con firm the decrease of hu mid ity and arid to semiarid cli mate in the Late Rhaetian sug gested by Haas et al (2012).…”