Subaerial disconformities,microkarst and paleosols in Ordovician limestones at Bowan Park and Cliefden Caves,New South Wales,and their geoheritage significance

The Ordovician Daylesford Limestone at Bowan Park and the Fossil Hill Limestone at Cliefden Caves have diagenetic and pedogenic features of microkarst, paleosols and calcrete associated with subaerial disconformities in their stratigraphic sequences, all of which, as an ensemble, have global geoheritage significance. The original shelly limestones, lime mudstones, and coralline limestones have selectively dissolved to form vugular limestone whose cavities have filled with sparry calcite and/or crystal silt. The limestones also have been calcretised to develop massive and laminar calcrete and calcrete ooids. Below disconformity surfaces are bleached limestone, crystal-silt and spar-filled fossil moulds and enlarged moulds, micro-breccia-filled moulds and fissures filled with crystal silt, calcrete pellets and calcrete ooids. The disconformity surfaces are irregular or undulating interfaces between lithologies, fissures and fissure-fills, and calcrete. Above disconformities there are limestone lithoclasts, remanié fossils, calcreted limestone, veined limestone, calcrete ooids, laminated calcrete, lithoclast grainstone, or calcrete-ooid grainstone, and lithoclasts with fossils moulds filled with crystal silt and/or spar. The lithological, stratigraphic and possibly landscape differences, make the subaerial diagenesis/pedogenesis in the Daylesford Limestone subtly different to that of the Fossil Hill Limestone. Subaerial disconformities and associated diagenesis/pedogenesis, as recorded in these formations, are not widely reported globally nor well represented in Ordovician limestones. The microkarst features provide insights into the types of subaerial diagenesis/pedogenesis during the Ordovician and into climate, landscape setting, paleohydrology, and groundwater/rainwater alkalinity. Consequently, the story of the Ordovician microkarst, paleosols and calcrete ooids is unique and globally of geoheritage significance as examples of subaerial alteration in an ancient high-rainfall, tropical climate volcanic island environment in a tectonically active region.     

Clidicostigus gen. nov., the first Mesozoic genus of Mastigini (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Scydmaeninae) from Cenomanian Burmese amber

The Mastigitae is a small supertribe of ant-like stone beetles that currently includes nine extant and five extinct genera. Extinct taxa are known within tribes Clidicini and Mastigini; the latter with one genus discovered in Baltic amber. For the first time, a Mesozoic genus of the tribe Mastigini is described, Clidicostigus arachnipes Jałoszyński, Brunke and Bai, gen. et sp. nov., from Cenomanian Burmese amber. The new taxon shares an enlarged and spiny scape and pedicel with its extant relatives but has deep elytral grooves and a strongly elongate and asymmetrical maxillary palpomere IV; the beetle has also enormously elongate maxillary palps and legs. The elongation of appendages in combination with only moderately large eyes is postulated to have evolved as an adaptation to running quickly, with tactile and chemical senses predominating over sight. The mode of life of Clidicostigus might have been similar to that of extant Mastigini, especially of particularly slender South African species that run on the ground and climb bushes and trees in search of prey.     

Inflorescences of Mauldinia sp. (Lauraceae) and associated fruits from the Cenomanian of Languedoc Roussillon,France

Inflorescences of Mauldinia (Lauraceae) are described from the middle Cenomanian Pauletian facies of Gard, Languedoc-Roussillon, south-eastern France. This is the first record of the genus from this part of Europe. Mauldinia sp. is described based on peduncles and lateral units. Isolated, slender peduncles show spirally arranged scars or rarely attached lateral units. Isolated lateral units consist of cladode-like structures showing up to seven flower/fruit scars. Some isolated fruits were found associated with peduncles and lateral units. Fruits are ovoid fruits contain a single, elongated seed. The pericarp consists of epicarp, mesocarp and endocarp. The seed consists of two cotyledons containing well-developed reserve cells. Mauldinia sp. from Gard differs from known Mauldinia species by having longer internodes along the peduncle and by the shape of the lateral units. Sedimentological and palaeontological evidence suggests that Mauldinia sp. from Gard grew in a protected, littoral environment with limited marine influence. This report provides new information to the relatively poorly known Cretaceous record of angiosperms in France. The occurrence of Mauldinia in the lower Upper Cretaceous of Gard corroborates the widespread occurrence of the genus in marginal littoral environments during the mid-Cretaceous.     

A new genus of silken-fungus beetle (Coleoptera: Cryptophagidae) from the Spanish Cretaceous amber

The Cretaceous new species and genus Albocryptophagus cantabricus gen. et sp. n. is described based on a fossil specimen from the El Soplao amber deposit (Spain). The new genus is similar to the extant genera Cryptophagus and Micrambe, but differs from them in the transverse pedicel, anterior angles of pronotum, pronotal margin unmodified, pronotal pits absent. Albocryptophagus gen. n. is undoubtedly the most ancient representative for the subfamily Cryptophaginae described up today. Because the saproxylic habits in recent species of the family, a similar behavior is inferred for this new fossil. It is a new example that agrees with the idea that fossil beetles from Mesozoic ambers are characterized by a saproxylic lifestyle.     

Scydmobisetia gen. nov., the first definite Glandulariini from Upper Cretaceous Burmese amber (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Scydmaeninae)

The Glandulariini (=Cyrtoscydmini) includes about 60 genera comprising over 70% of the extant species of Scydmaeninae. This successful group is today very common and abundant in forests of all continents. However, while extinct representatives of much smaller extant tribes, as Clidicini, Eutheiini and Cephenniini, were described from Cretaceous deposits, named genera and species of Glandulariini were so far known only from much younger Baltic, Sicilian and Dominican ambers. Here we report the first genus and species of definite Glandulariini from the Upper Cretaceous Burmese amber, Scydmobisetia vetutissima Jałoszyński and Yamamoto, gen. and sp. nov. Scydmobisetia is the first known glandulariine beetle with a pair of very long vertexal sensilla chaetica, previously not found in this tribe, but common among unrelated Staphylinidae. The new genus shows similarities to the extant genera Anthicimimus, Sciacharis, Spinosciacharis and Horaeomorphus, but S. vetutissima has protibial modifications typical of males of some extant species of Euconnus. We discuss the apparent disproportion in the oldest fossil record of various tribes of scydmaenines as a result of identification problems, and not the lack of known fossils.     

A new extinct genus of Glandulariini with two species from Upper Cretaceous Burmese amber (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Scydmaeninae)

The Glandulariini (=Cyrtoscydmini) is today the largest, most species-rich and most diverse tribe of Scydmaeninae comprising over 70% of the extant species of this subfamily. Named genera and species of Glandulariini are known mostly from Miocene to Eocene ambers, with only one, recently described Mesozoic taxon. Here we report the second genus of Glandulariini from Upper Cretaceous Burmese amber, Cenomaniola Jałoszyński and Yamamoto, gen. nov., with two species, C. carinata Jałoszyński and Yamamoto, sp. nov. and C. macrophthalma Jałoszyński and Yamamoto, sp. nov. Cenomaniola shows the general body plan typical of the ‘Euconnus complex’ within Glandulariini, with thick bristles on the sides of head and pronotum, a character conserved for nearly a hundred million years. With the previous discovery of Scydmobisetia Jałoszyński and Yamamoto, two major body forms typical of the extant Glandulariini are already proved to have differentiated in or before the Late Cretaceous. This demonstrates early origins and a long conservation of ‘Euconnus-like’ and ‘Sciacharis/Horaeomorphus-like’ body plan in the currently largest group among Scydmaeninae.     

Energizing historical materialism: Fossil fuels, space and the capitalist mode of production

In this paper, I present a theoretical argument that fossil fuel represents a historically specific and internally necessary aspect of the capitalist mode of production. Despite sustained attention to distributional conflicts between international capital and energy rich nation-states, few historical-materialists have paid attention to the relations between fossil fuel and capital accumulation in industrial capitalist societies. In opposition to ecological economic notions of fixed thermodynamic “laws”, I first propose a dialectical conception of energy as embedded in dynamic social processes and power relations. Second, I review the historical importance of the energy shift from solar or biological sources of energy (muscles, wind, and water) to fossilized sources of energy (coal, oil, and gas). I then demonstrate how attention to fossil fuel energy forces a reexamination of the core insights of ecological Marxism and the political economy of nature. In the core argument of the paper, I reconsider the shift from biological to fossil energy as internal to the generalization and extension of capitalist social relations from two basic vantage points - (1) capitalist production based on wage labor; (2) the spatial conditions of capitalist circulation. I conclude by asking whether it is accurate to conceptualize capitalism as a “fossil fuel mode of production” and highlight the political urgency of a historical materialist perspective that takes seriously the importance of energy to the reproduction of capitalist social relations.     

Ecological variations in diatom assemblages in the Paleo-Kathmandu Lake linked with global and Indian monsoon climate changes for the last 600,000 years

Variations in fossil diatom assemblages and their relationship with global and Indian monsoon climate changes for the last 600,000 yr were investigated using a core of ancient lake (Paleo-Kathmandu Lake) sediments drilled at the Kathmandu Basin, Nepal Himalaya. Chronological scales of the core were constructed by tuning pollen wet and dry index records to the SPECMAP δ¹⁸O stack record. Examinations of biogenic silica contents and fossil diatom assemblages revealed that variations in productivity and compositions of diatom assemblages were closely linked with global and Indian monsoon climate changes on glacial and interglacial time scales. When summer monsoonal rainfall increased during interglacials (interstadials), diatom productivity increased because of increased inputs of terrestrial nutrients into the lake. When summer monsoonal rainfall reduced and/or winter monsoonal aridification enhanced during glacials (stadials), productivity of the diatoms decreased and lake-level falling brought about changes in compositions of diatom assemblages. Monospecific assemblages by unique Cyclotella kathmanduensis and Puncticulata versiformis appeared during about 590 to 390 ka. This might be attributed to evolutionary fine-tuning of diatom assemblages to specific lake environmental conditions. Additionally, low-amplitude precessional variations in monsoon climate and less lake-level changes may have also allowed both species to dominate over the long periods.     

New Mesozoic earwigs from England,with a catalogue of fossil Dermaptera

Earwigs (Dermaptera) are scarce in the fossil record. Over a hundred fossil dermapterans have been described to date, the oldest undisputed fossils dating back to the Late Triassic. Here, two new species, Phanerogramma kellyi sp. nov. and Brevicula teres sp. nov., are described from the Rhaetian and Sinemurian of England, respectively, from isolated tegmina. The features that distinguish fossil earwig fragments from other insect remains are discussed. A catalogue of fossil and subfossil Dermaptera is appended.     

Is there an Insect Signal for the "Little Ice Age"?

The downturn in temperature in the late medieval period is likely to have had significant impact upon insect distribution. Despite the amount of study fossil insect faunas have been afforded, there is presently little convincing evidence of climatic, rather than human impact upon faunas during the "Little Ice Age". This probably reflects as much the paucity of suitable sites, as the overarching scale of habitat destruction by Man.