Late Moscovian terrestrial biotas and palaeoenvironments of Variscan Euramerica

0356689 - GLÚ 2011 RIV NL eng J - Journal Article
Cleal, C. J. - Opluštil, S. - Thomas, B. A. - Tenchov, Y. - Abbink, O. A. - Bek, Jiří - Dimitrova, T. - Drábková, J. - Hartkopf-Fröder, Ch. - van Hoof, T. - Kedzior, A. - Jarzembowski, E. - Jasper, K. - Libertín, M. - McLean, D. - Oliwkiewicz-Miklasinska, M. - Pšenička, J. - Ptak, B. - Schneider, J. W. - Schultka, S. - Šimůnek, Z. - Uhl, D. - Waksmundzka, M. I. - van Waveren, I. - Zodrow, E. L.
Late Moscovian terrestrial biotas and palaeoenvironments of Variscan Euramerica.
Netherlands Journal of Geosciences-Geologie en Mijnbouw. Roč. 88, č. 4 (2009), s. 181-278. ISSN 0016-7746. E-ISSN 1573-9708
Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z30130516
Keywords : Pennsylvanian Subsystem * climates * vegetation * faunas * sedimentology
Subject RIV: DB - Geology ; Mineralogy
Impact factor: 0.655, year: 2009

A synthesis of the upper Moscovian sedimentological and palaeontological record of terrestrial habitats across the Variscan foreland suggests a contraction and westward shift of the coal swamps. These changes can be correlated with pulses of tectonic activity resulting from the northwards migration of the Variscan Front. This tectonic activity caused drainage patterns where the coal swamps were growing and replacement of swampy arborescent lycopsids by vegetation dominated by marattialean ferns. Reductions in rainfall further affected the swamp vegetation. In Asturian times, the swamps in Variscan Euramerica became replaced by predominantly conifer and cordaite vegetation that favoured much drier substrates. The last development of coal swamps in Variscan foreland was of early Cantabrian age. In the USA, lycopsid-dominated coal swamps persisted for a little longer and disappeared by middle-late Cantabrian times.
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0195142