A rare late Mississipian flora from Northwestern Europe (Maine-et-Loire Coalfield, Pays de la Loire, France)

International audienceNumerous localities in the Maine-et-Loire coalfield in northwestern France have yielded diverse adpression floras belonging to the Calymmotheca stangeri Zone, indicating an early Namurian (Serpukhovian–late Mississippian) age. The floristic affinities are with the South European Palaeoprovince, although there is some evidence of an ecotonal relationship with the Central European Palaeoprovince to the north. The geological context of the deposits suggest that the floras may represent vegetation from an intra-montane setting, although at lower elevations compared with the Pennsylvanian-age Variscan intra-montane basins. This represents some of the earliest known examples of coal swamp vegetation, although compared with the Pennsylvanian-aged coal swamps there was a significantly higher proportion of lycopsid species and a lower proportion of medullosaleans. Most of the Maine-et-Loire fossiliferous localities yielded diverse assemblages of lycopsids, equisetopsids, ferns and Calymmotheca species, and these were used to develop a pictorial reconstruction of this early coal swamp vegetation. However, two of the localities yielded adpressions and associated palynofloras with a greater predominance of lycopsids and sphenopsids, suggesting vegetation of wetter habitats. Two other localities yielded species of a more Pennsylvanian aspect such as Cardioneuropteris and Karinopteris, which may represent drier substrate vegetation

Exploring the potential of neutron imaging for life sciences on IMAT

Neutron imaging has been employed in life sciences in recent years and has proven to be a viable technique for studying internal features without compromising integrity and internal structure of samples in addition to being complementary to other methods such as X-ray or magnetic resonance imaging. Within the last decade, a neutron imaging beamline, IMAT, was designed and built at the ISIS Neutron and Muon Source, UK, to meet the increasing demand for neutron imaging applications in various fields spanning from materials engineering to biology. In this paper, we present the first neutron imaging experiments on different biological samples during the scientific commissioning of the IMAT beamline mainly intended to explore the beamline's capabilities and its potential as a noninvasive investigation tool in fields such as agriculture (soil-plants systems), palaeontology and dentistry. Lay Description: Neutrons form a highly penetrating radiation passing through matter without damaging or structurally modifying it, a property that makes them the ideal tool for many kinds of complementary material investigations. Moreover, the strong interaction of neutrons with hydrogen and their ability to distinguish between hydrogen and deuterium with no radiation damage make neutrons a good probe for imaging biological specimens. The recent technological developments of sources and detectors improved the capabilities of neutron imaging instruments and also have facilitated the use of neutron imaging on a much wider scale than before. Neutron imaging is proving its advantages as being complementary to other known methods of investigation such as X-ray imaging or magnetic resonance imaging and it is no surprise that it is not only employed in engineering or archaeology, but also in life sciences. This definitely opens new perspectives for a more interdisciplinary approach in contemporary science. Within the last decade a neutron imaging beamline, IMAT, was designed and built at the ISIS Neutron and Muon Source, UK, to meet the increasing demands of researchers from different fields, spanning from materials engineering to biology. The results presented here, acquired from first measurements on different biological samples during the scientific commissioning of IMAT beamline show the instrument capability and its suitability to palaeontology, agriculture (soil–plants systems) or dentistry applications.</p