The Early Cretaceous mesofossil flora of Catefica, Portugal: angiospermsShow others and affiliations
2022 (English)In: Fossil Imprint, ISSN 2533-4050, Vol. 78, no 2, p. 341-424Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Angiosperm mesofossils are described from the Lower Cretaceous Almargem Formation exposed near the village of Catefica, Portugal, and are thought to be of Aptian-early Albian age. The mesofossil assemblage from Catefica is diverse and, in addition to the angiosperms described here, also contains a rich assemblage of non-angiosperm fossils, including leafy axes of bryophytes and lycopsids, lycopsid and salvinialean megaspores, and sporangia, sori and leaf fragments of ferns. Thereare also twigs, cones, cone scales, seeds and sporangia of several kinds of conifers. Other seed plants include 11 species of chlamydospermous seeds and vegetative axes related to the BEG group (Bennettiales-Erdtmanithecales-Gnetales). In terms of the number of plant fragments identified, angiosperms are most abundant in the Catefica assemblage and account for morethan half of all specimens. Angiosperms also dominate in number of species, but because the non-angiosperm fossils have notbeen studied in detail the total number of species in the flora is not yet established. Sixty-seven species of angiosperms arerecognized. Angiosperm diversity is mainly at the level of non-eudicots, including ANA-grade angiosperms, Chloranthaceae and magnoliids. Remains of chloranthoid angiosperms are especially common, both in the number of specimens and in numberof species recognized. About 40 % of the specimens, and more than 25 % of the species are chloranthoids. Remains of magnoliid angiosperms (Magnoliales, Laurales, Canellales, Piperales) are also prominent among the angiosperms. Eudicots are subordinate: only 3–4 % of all angiosperm specimens can be assigned confidently to eudicot angiosperms. Five new genera and six new species of angiosperms are established (Canrightia foveolata sp. nov., Elasmostemon paisii gen. et sp. nov., Endressistemon cateficensis gen. et sp. nov., Ibericarpus cuneiformis gen. et sp. nov., Proencistemon portugallicus gen. et sp. nov., Valvidistemon globiferus gen. et sp. nov.). Several other new taxa are also described, but not formally named.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Prague: National Museum , 2022. Vol. 78, no 2, p. 341-424
Keywords [en]
Almargem Formation, angiosperms, Early Cretaceous, fossil flowers, mesofossils, pollen, SRXTM, synchrotron radiation X-ray tomographic microscopy
National Category
Other Earth and Related Environmental Sciences
Research subject
The changing Earth
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:nrm:diva-5141DOI: 10.37520/fi.2022.016OAI: oai:DiVA.org:nrm-5141DiVA, id: diva2:1723375
Funder
Paul Scherrer Institut, PSI, 20070197, 20080872, 20100167, 20110963, 20130185, 20141047, 20160140, 20171476, 20190071, 20211671Swedish Research Council, 2014-5228
Note
We thank the Paul Scherrer Institute, Villigen,Switzerland for provision of synchrotron radiation beamtime at the TOMCAT beamline X02DA of the SwissLight Source. We are also grateful to Federica Marone forher help at the beamline (project 20070197, 20080872,20100167,20110963, 20130185, 20141047, 20160140,20171476, 20190071, 20211671 to P. C. J. Donoghue, S.Bengtson, E. M. Friis and M. Rücklin), Anna Lindström forhelp with the SRXTM analyses, and Pia Bomholt Jensenfor her help with SEM at the University of Aarhus. Wealso thank Patrick S. Herendeen and Steven R. Manchesterfor valuable comments to the manuscript. Support for thisresearch was also obtained from the Swedish ResearchCouncil (2014-5228 to E. M. Friis), United States NationalScience Foundation (BSR-8708460, DEB-9616443, DEB-1348456, DEB-1748286, to PRC and colleagues) the OakSpring Garden Foundation, the Czech Grant Agency (project20-06134S) and the Portuguese Science Foundation (FCT),under the projects UIDB/04292/2020 and UIDP/04292/2020,granted to MARE, and LA/P/0069/2020, granted to theAssociate Laboratory ARNET.
2022-12-272023-01-03Bibliographically approved