Permian continental paleoenvironments in Southeastern Asia: New insights from the Luang Prabang Basin (Laos)

Late Permian (Lopingian) Terrestrial Ecosystems: A Global Comparison With New Data From the Low Latitude Bletterbach Biota

“…The Limestone and Sandstone formation also has yielded an abundant but low diversity, transported macrofloral assemblage. The flora is primarily composed of Cathaysian taxa, with sphenophytes, ferns, seed ferns and leaves resembling Glossopteris, similar to those described from the upper Permian deposits of the Chahe and Tucheng sections in Guizhou, South China (Bercovici et al, 2012).…”

“…This association is indicated when abundances are considered: where ferns and sphenophytes were more abundant in the Gondwanan and Angaran floras, dicynodonts also were dominant; in contrast, where ferns and sphenophytes were less abundant, as in the Euramerican flora, dicynodonts were rarer. The high variety of sphenophytes and ferns in the Cathaysian flora however clashes with this hypothesis, since only few dicynodonts have been discovered in this area, mostly in northern China and Laos (Bercovici et al, 2012). However, these areas are understudied compared to other, better researched regions such as southern Africa or Russia, so their dicynodont diversity may be underestimated.…”

“…The Luang Prabang Basin of northern Laos contains three distinct upper Permian continental formations that have yielded both fossil tetrapods and plants (Bercovici et al, 2012). The informally named 'Red Claystone Formation' is characterised by facies interpreted as an alluvial plain with interbedded fluvial sandstone bars.…”

“…The highest percentage of herbivorous dicynodonts in the associations is at high palaeolatitudes: 80% in the Junggar Basin of China, 92% in India, and 75-95% in South Africa. By contrast, the lowest percentage, including complete absences, occur in tropical and subtropical regions, with few exceptions, such as possible dicynodont tracks from the Bletterbach (2%), and a few specimens from Scotland, South China and Laos (Conti et al, 1977;Newton, 1893;Benton and Walker, 1985;Bercovici et al, 2012). King (1992) suggested that dicynodonts were adapted to exploiting components of the Gondwanan flora, but their occurrence in Laurussia, particularly Russia and China, indicates that this was not the sole factor for determining their distribution (Angielczyk and Sullivan, 2008).…”

“…Plant fossil assemblages have been described from the Germanic Basin (mostly Germany and England; e.g., Stoneley, 1958;Haubold and Schaumberg, 1985;Schweitzer, 1986;Uhl and Kerp, 2002 and ref. therein), Italy (e.g., Visscher et al, 2001;Kustatscher et al, 2012Kustatscher et al, , 2014; Oman and Jordan (Berthelin et al, 2003;Kerp, 2006;Hamad et al, 2008), China (Sun, 2006;Deng et al, 2009), Brazil (Archangelsky, 1986;Rösler, 1989, 2000;Langer et al, 2008), Antarctica (McLoughlin et al, 1997;Manus et al, 2002), South Africa (Anderson and Anderson, 1985;Prevec et al, 2009Prevec et al, , 2010, Laos (Bercovici et al, 2012), and Australia (Beattie, 2007). Notably, the lack of plant and animal fossil co-occurrence, or alternatively their extremely low diversity, prevents the full reconstruction of terrestrial ecosystems for most of these sites.…”