Survival and long-term maintenance of tertiary trees in the Iberian Peninsula during the Pleistocene. First record of Aesculus L.

The Italian and Balkan peninsulas have been places traditionally highlighted as Pleistocene glacial refuges. The Iberian Peninsula, however, has been a focus of controversy between geobotanists and palaeobotanists as a result of its exclusion from this category on different occasions. In the current paper, we synthesise geological, molecular, palaeobotanical and geobotanical data that show the importance of the Iberian Peninsula in the Western Mediterranean as a refugium area. The presence of Aesculus aff. hippocastanum L. at the Iberian site at Cal Guardiola (Tarrasa, Barcelona, NE Spain) in the Lower– Middle Pleistocene transition helps to consolidate the remarkable role of the Iberian Peninsula in the survival of tertiary species during the Pleistocene. The palaeodistribution of the genus in Europe highlights a model of area abandonment for a widely-distributed species in the Miocene and Pliocene, leading to a diminished and fragmentary presence in the Pleistocene and Holocene on the southern Mediterranean peninsulas. Aesculus fossils are not uncommon within the series of Tertiary taxa. Many appear in the Pliocene and suffer a radical impoverishment in the Lower–Middle Pleistocene transition. Nonetheless some of these tertiary taxa persisted throughout the Pleistocene and Holocene up to the present in the Iberian Peninsula. Locating these refuge areas on the Peninsula is not an easy task, although areas characterised by a sustained level of humidity must have played an predominant role

Palaeoxylotomical studies in the Cenozoic petrified forests of Greece. Part one-palms

The paper reports a palaeoxylotomical study of petrified palm remains (stem, root, rachis) collected from some fossil sites of Greece (Evros, Lemnos, Lesbos and Kastoria) aged to the late Oligocene to early Miocene. Five species of Palmoxylon were identified: P. daemonoropsoides (Unger) Kirchheimer, corr., P. chamaeropsoides Iamandei et Iamandei, sp. nov., P. coryphoides Ambwani et Mehrotra, P. sabaloides Greguss, P. trachycarpoides Iamandei et Iamandei, sp. nov. and P. phoenicoides Hofmann. Also found were two species of Rhizopalmoxylon (R. daemonoropsoides Iamandei et Iamandei, sp. nov., R. phoenicoides Iamandei et Iamandei, sp. nov.) and Palmocaulon sp. aff. Phoenix L. These new identifications add new elements to the forest assemblages of the Oligocene-Miocene Greek flora, useful for understanding the evolution of the Cenozoic palaeoclimate in the Aegean area. © 2019 Dimitrios Velitzelos et al., published by Sciendo

PALAEOXYLOTOMICAL STUDIES in the CENOZOIC PETRIFIED FORESTS of GREECE. PART TWO – CONIFERS

This paper reports the palaeoxylotomical study of petrified conifer remains from Velitzelos collection, originating from some fossiliferous sites of Greece, especially from the Aegean area (Evros, Limnos, Lesbos), aged of late Oligocene to early Miocene. Ten species were identified: Cupressinoxylon akdikii, Juniperoxylon acarcae, Tetraclinoxylon velitzelosii, Taxodioxylon gypsaceum, Taxodioxylon taxodii, Glyptostroboxylon rudolphii, Glyptostroboxylon tenerum, Pinuxylon pineoides, Pinuxylon halepensoides and Pinuxylon sp. aff. Pinus canariensis. These new identifications add new elements to the forest assemblages of the Oligocene - Miocene Greek flora, useful for understanding the evolution of the Cenozoic palaeovegetation and palaeoclimate in the Aegean area. © 2021 The authors. All right reserved

Chimairoidoxylon lesboense gen. nov. sp. nova - An endemic wood fossil from the Tertiary period of Lesbos, Greece [Chimairoidoxylon lesboense gen. nov. sp. nova, ein endemisches Holzfossil aus dem Tertiar von Lesbos, Griechenland]

From the petrified forest of Lesbos (Greece) the stem-, branch- and root wood of a fossil conifer with a hitherto entirely unknown wood structure will be investigated and described as Chimairoidoxylon lesboense gen. nov. sp. nova because of the occurrence of ancient and modem features

Nostimochelone lampra gen. et sp. nov., an enigmatic new podocnemidoidean turtle from the early miocene of Northern Greece

A new podocnemidoidean turtle, Nostimochelone lampra gen. et sp. nov., was recently recovered from littoral marine-estuarine sediments of the lower Miocene Zeugostasion Formation, near the village of Nostimo in northwestern Macedonia, Greece. This new taxon is characterized by a mosaic of primitive and derived features most notably the presence of a broad embayment on the anterior carapace margin, which involves both the nuchal (whose width > length) and first pair of peripherals, a continuous series of six markedly elongate and very narrowed hexagonal neural bones, extension of the axillary buttress onto the midline of the anteroposteriorly elongate costal I (leaving a concave scar) and also laterally across the peripheral II–peripheral III suture, medial contact of the humeral scutes (implying a small intergular), and extensive overlap of the pectoral scutes on the entoplastron, probably extending to the epiplastral–hyoplastral suture. Conclusive phylogenetic placement of Nostimochelone is difficult to establish because the remains are incompletely preserved. Nevertheless, its discovery is significant because it represents both the first record of a pleurodiran turtle from Greece and also one of only a handful of fossil podocnemidoidean occurrences thus far documented from the Neogene of Europe. © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Messinian vegetation and climate of the intermontane Florina–Ptolemais–Servia Basin, NW Greece inferred from palaeobotanical data: How well do plant fossils reflect past environments?

The late Miocene is marked by pronounced environmental changes and the appearance of strong temperature and precipitation seasonality. Although environmental heterogeneity is to be expected during this time, it is challenging to reconstruct palaeoenvironments using plant fossils. We investigated leaves and dispersed spores/pollen from 6.4 to 6 Ma strata in the intermontane Florina–Ptolemais–Servia Basin (FPS) of northwestern Greece. To assess how well plant fossils reflect the actual vegetation of the FPS, we assigned fossil taxa to biomes providing a measure for environmental heterogeneity. Additionally, the palynological assemblage was compared with pollen spectra from modern lake sediments to assess biases in spore/pollen representation in the pollen record. We found a close match of the Vegora assemblage with modern Fagus–Abies forests of Turkey. Using taxonomic affinities of leaf fossils, we further established close similarities of the Vegora assemblage with modern laurophyllous oak forests of Afghanistan. Finally, using information from sedimentary environment and taphonomy, we distinguished local and distantly growing vegetation types.We then subjected the plant assemblage of Vegora to different methods of climate reconstruction and discussed their potentials and limitations. Leaf and spore/pollen records allow accurate reconstructions of palaeoenvironments in the FPS, whereas extra-regional vegetation from coastal lowlands is probably not captured. © 2020 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited