Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Paleontology
WITHDRAWN: The potential of terrestrial and aquatic molluscs for the temporal analysis of Deckenschotter deposits and younger Quaternary sediments from the Swiss Plateau
Published: 2024-02-08
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Paleobiology, Paleontology, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy
The Rapa Nui Little Ice Age drought: evidence, potential causes and socioecological impact
Published: 2024-01-12
Subjects: Paleontology, Sedimentology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
A decade ago, an island-wide drought was proposed to have occurred on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) during the Little Ice Age (LIA). This climatic event was considered to be important for ecological and cultural transformations that occurred on the island during the 16th and 17th centuries. Independent multiproxy paleoecological and paleoclimatic evidence produced in the last years supports the [...]
How agriculture, droughts and diseases shaped the island environments of Remote Oceania over the last Millennium
Published: 2023-11-10
Subjects: Paleontology, Sedimentology
Over the past millennium, the Pacific Islands have experienced significant transformations, caused by different waves of human settlement and climatic variability. However, the paucity of archeological records coupled with the complex climatic setting of the tropical Pacific hinders our understanding of past environmental and societal changes. In this study, we employ a multi-proxy approach on [...]
Wetter climate favouring early Lapita horticulture in Remote Oceania
Published: 2023-11-10
Subjects: Paleontology, Sedimentology
The islands of Remote Oceania were among the last places on Earth colonised by humans. Lapita seafarers carrying with them an extensive root-tuber-tree crop complex and domestic animals, rapidly transformed nearly all of these previously unoccupied islands. However, the timing of initial Lapita settlements and the early introduction of horticulture remain a matter of debate as significant changes [...]
Transgression–regression cycles drive correlations in Ediacaran–Cambrian rock and fossil records
Published: 2023-11-07
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Paleontology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology, Statistical Methodology, Statistics and Probability, Stratigraphy
Strata of the Ediacaran Period (635–538.8 Ma) yield the oldest known fossils of complex, macroscopic organisms in the geologic record. These “Ediacaran-type” macrofossils (known as the Ediacaran biota) first appear in mid-Ediacaran strata, experience an apparent decline through the terminal Ediacaran, and directly precede the Cambrian (538.8–485.4 Ma) radiation of animals. Existing hypotheses for [...]
Middle Miocene vegetation of the Vallès-Penedès Basin (NE Iberian Peninsula), as inferred from fossil pollen records: state of the art and future prospects
Published: 2023-11-02
Subjects: Other Plant Sciences, Paleontology
In the Mediterranean region, the study of fossil pollen has provided a comprehensive spatiotemporal paleoclimatic and paleovegetational picture of the Neogene flora and vegetation. The NW Mediterranean sector is a reference area for the study of vertebrate evolution, especially during the Middle Miocene, but paleofloristic and paleovegetational patterns are much less known, which hinders placing [...]
Spatial standardization of taxon occurrence data—a call to action
Published: 2023-10-20
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Paleobiology, Paleontology, Statistical Methodology
The fossil record is spatiotemporally heterogeneous: taxon occurrence data have patchy spatial distributions, and this patchiness varies through time. Large-scale quantitative paleobiology studies that fail to account for heterogeneous sampling coverage will generate uninformative inferences at best and confidently draw wrong conclusions at worst. Explicitly spatial methods of standardization are [...]
Mind the uncertainty: Global plate model choice impacts deep-time palaeobiological studies
Published: 2023-06-23
Subjects: Biodiversity, Climate, Earth Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Geology, Life Sciences, Paleobiology, Paleontology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Tectonics and Structure
1. Global plate models (GPMs) aim to reconstruct the tectonic evolution of the Earth by modelling the motion of the plates and continents through time. These models enable palaeobiologists to study the past distribution of extinct organisms. However, different GPMs exist that vary in their partitioning of the Earth's surface and the modelling of continental motions. Consequently, the preferred [...]
Diamond open access with preregistration: a new publishing model for palaeontology
Published: 2023-06-08
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Paleontology
The current academic publishing model is systemically unfit for purpose. The academic publishing ecosystem is dominated by a few large for-profit publishing houses which, at every stage of the publication process, transform academic work and public resources into private profit. Although extracting substantial profits, these publishing houses themselves add little value to the final published [...]
Diamond open access with preregistration: a new publishing model for palaeontology
Published: 2023-06-07
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Paleontology
The current academic publishing model is systemically unfit for purpose. The academic publishing ecosystem is dominated by a few large for-profit publishing houses which, at every stage of the publication process, transform academic work and public resources into private profit. Although extracting substantial profits, these publishing houses themselves add little value to the final published [...]
Tracing timing of growth in cultured mollusks using strontium spiking
Published: 2022-12-23
Subjects: Aquaculture and Fisheries Life Sciences, Biogeochemistry, Geochemistry, Paleontology
Growth experiments present a powerful tool for determining the effect of environmental parameters on growth and carbonate composition in biogenic calcifiers. For successful proxy calibration and biomineralization studies, it is vital to exactly identify volumes of carbonate precipitated at precise intervals during the experiment. Here, we investigate the use of strontium labelling in mollusk [...]
palaeoverse: a community-driven R package to support palaeobiological analysis
Published: 2022-10-26
Subjects: Geology, Paleobiology, Paleontology
1. The open-source programming language ‘R’ has become a standard tool in the palaeobiologist’s toolkit. Its popularity within the palaeobiology community continues to grow, with published articles increasingly citing the usage of R and R packages. However, there are currently a lack of agreed standards for data preparation and available frameworks to support implementation of such standards. [...]
How to drain a megalake: Comments on a study by Palcu et al. (2021) Scientific Reports 11, Art. Nr.: 11471.
Published: 2022-05-27
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Oceanography, Paleobiology, Paleontology, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy, Tectonics and Structure
In a recent paper by Palcu et al. (2021: Scientific Reports 11, Art. Nr.: 11471), the Cape Panagia section on the Taman peninsula (Russian Black Sea) was dated using magnetostratigraphy, in order to calibrate the timing of previously published regressions of the Paratethys megalake. The authors of the paper claim that this “largest megalake in the geological record” experienced four major [...]
Paleocene to Miocene southern Tethyan carbonate factories of the Southwestern and Western Central Asia
Published: 2022-03-11
Subjects: Geology, Paleobiology, Paleontology, Sedimentology
One hundred and forty-four sections of shallow-water carbonates, deposited between the Paleocene and the Miocene, from the Levant to the Himalaya, have been investigated to analyze the distribution of carbonate facies and carbonate producing organisms. Large benthic foraminifera resulted the volumetrically most important group of carbonate producers during the whole period, with a peak in [...]
Macrostratigraphy of the Ediacaran System in North America
Published: 2022-02-11
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Paleontology, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy, Tectonics and Structure
Ediacaran sediments record the termination of Cryogenian ‘Snowball Earth’ glaciations, preserve the first occurrences of macroscopic metazoans, and contain one of the largest known negative δ13C excursions (the Shuram-Wonoka). The rock record for the transition between the Proterozoic and Phanerozoic in North America is also physically distinct, with much of the continent characterized by a wide [...]