Oligocene-Miocene Vertebrates from the Valley of Lakes (Central Mongolia): Morphology, phylogenetic and stratigraphic implications Editor: Gudrun DAXNER-HÖCK 2. Molluscan fauna (Gastropoda: Pulmonata: Pupilloidea): a systematic review

Abstract Oligocene terrestrial gastropods from the Valley of Lakes, Mongolia, were found together with mammal remnants during field work carried out by a joint Austrian-Mongolian Expedition. They are represented by 11 taxa of Pupilloidea belonging to 5 genera: Vertigo, Gastrocopta, Pupoides, Strobilops and Vallonia. The shells and internal moulds were mainly collected in two horizons of the Hsanda Gol Formation recognized as being of Early Oligocene and Late Oligocene ages and correlated with mammalian associations A and C, respectively. The younger horizon of Early Miocene age, correlated with the rodent association D, yielded only a few shells. Most of the gastropod taxa were already known, but Gastrocopta valentini and Vallonia tumida are described here as new species. Previously known species are partly revised and new and better preserved specimens are illustrated

Origin of calcite-cemented Holocene slope breccias from the Długa Valley (the Western Tatra Mountains)

New locality of slope breccias was found in the Western Tatra Mts. It occures in the Długa Valley on a steep slope of ravine beneath the belt of Jurassic radiolarite cliffs. The brecccia consists of angular clasts of radiolarite bound with calcite cements. Void spaces between the clasts contain shells of Holocene snails. The cements are built of columnar crystals composed of acicular subcrystals and of skeletal crystals. The crystals grew rapidly from supersaturated solution due to CO2 degassing. Cementation occurred in vadose conditions in the Atlantcic Phase soon after the scree formation

Miocene land snails from Belchatów (Central Poland). II: Aciculidae (Gastropoda Prosobranchia)

The paper reports five species of Aciculidae from calcareous intercalations within lignite units of the opencast brown coal mine in Belchatów. Two of them, Acicula schlickumi (Schütt 1967) and Renea pretiosa (Andreae 1904) were only poorly known on the basis of some incomplete shells, while Acicula crassistoma is described as a new species

Sedimentation of Holocene tufa influenced by the Neolithic man : an example from the Sąspowska Valley (southern Poland)

A complex of inactive tufas, the thickness of which reaches 3.5 m, was studied in the lowermost segment of the Sąspowska Valley in the Kraków Upland (Ojców National Park, Poland). Five fluvial tufa barrages were recognized. They are composed of moss tufa and stromatolitic tufa accompanied with oncoidal rudstone and detrital tufa. Interbarrage ponded areas were filled with detrital tufa, lutite, and subordinately oncoidal rudstone, limestone gravel and peat-like deposit. Radiocarbon dates suggest that the tufa formed during Subboreal, Boreal and Atlantic time. The main difference between the tufa in the Sąspowska Valley and contemporaneous tufas in other valleys of the Kraków Upland is the higher amount of non-carbonate fraction in the former. Other Lower and Middle Holocene tufas of the Kraków Upland are composed mainly or exclusively of carbonate fraction. The non-carbonate fraction in fluviatile tufas in the Sąspowska Valley resulted from erosion of loess cover in the upper part of the catchment. The erosion was related to local activity of Neolithic flint miners who cleared forest at a local scale, dug shafts in loess cover and exploited flints from underlying weathered residuum of Jurassic limestone. Consequently, they made copious amounts of loose material available for transport down the valley and subsequent trapping within the tufa depositional system