Frontiers in Earth Science » Paleontology
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All aspects of paleontological research are welcome in this journal: from the study of vertebrates to trace fossils, from plants, pollen, and spores to communities and ecosystems, from the study of processes of decay to the formation of fossils.
Frontiers in Earth Science » Paleontology
2M ago
Plesiosaurs are Mesozoic reptiles fully adapted to an aquatic lifestyle. Throughout their evolutionary history exceeding 140 million years plesiosaurs dispersed globally, achieved substantial diversity, occupied a variety of ecological niches, and experienced multiple faunal turnovers. Of those, the Early/Middle Jurassic transition event (∼175–171 Mya) has recently became of increased interest because it apparently profoundly affected all three major lineages of plesiosaurs. Once dominant Rhomaleosauridae started to vanish, while Pliosauridae and Plesiosauroidea diversified and gave rise to se ..read more
Frontiers in Earth Science » Paleontology
2M ago
The Dicynodontia (Therapsida: Anomodontia) is one of the most successful Permo-Triassic terrestrial tetrapod clades and the oldest specimens are recorded from the middle Permian Eodicynodon Assemblage Zone of South Africa. Their fossil record is abundant and species-rich across Pangea. By contrast, the fossil record of the basal-most anomodonts, which includes non-dicynodont anomodonts and early forms of dicynodonts, is patchy and their morphology and phylogeny are deduced from relatively few specimens. Discovered in 1982 and described in 1990, the holotype of Eodicynodon oelofseni (NMQR 2913 ..read more
Frontiers in Earth Science » Paleontology
3M ago
Frontiers in Earth Science » Paleontology
4M ago
X-ray Microcomputed Tomography (µCT) is rapidly becoming an important analytical technique for examining the precise morphometry of small objects. The most notable feature of this technique is that it enables nondestructive, highly accurate morphometric measurements at micrometer-order resolution. In the Earth sciences, this makes µCT extremely useful for clarifying how genetic associations and the surrounding environment affect the morphology of micro-sized organisms. However, the actual analytical methods and the points that must be considered to produce reliable data have rarely been discus ..read more
Frontiers in Earth Science » Paleontology
4M ago
Frontiers in Earth Science » Paleontology
4M ago
Frontiers in Earth Science » Paleontology
6M ago
Frontiers in Earth Science » Paleontology
7M ago
The Nihewan Basin is infilled by a relatively complete Pliocene to Pleistocene sequence, rich mammalian fossils and containing many Palaeolithic artefacts, implying that it is a unique location for Quaternary multidisciplinary study. Fossil excavations in these deposits have been carried out for nearly a century. The systematic study of the fossils by Teilhard de Chardin and Piveteau in 1930 laid the foundations for the classic Nihewan Faunal assemblage, which has been widely followed as a standard for the Early Pleistocene biochronology in eastern Asia. With the availability of magnetostratig ..read more
Frontiers in Earth Science » Paleontology
7M ago
As a species, we have reached a tipping point for Earth derived from our unsustainable resource use. While conservation efforts occurred early in human civilization, it was not until 1980 that the full force of environmental destruction, including the Santa Barbara oil spill in the 1970s, culminated in the new discipline of conservation biology focused on the biosphere. Similarly, conservation paleobiology, named two decades later, brings the unique perspective of the fossil record to conservation efforts, uniting biosphere and geosphere scientists. To date, conservation history does not inclu ..read more
Frontiers in Earth Science » Paleontology
7M ago
This study presents an exceptional collection of 54 Late Pleistocene human remains that correspond to at least three Neanderthal individuals from Simanya Gran, the main gallery of Cova Simanya, located in the northeastern Iberian Peninsula. The collection comprised 53 unpublished remains that were unearthed during the 1970s and an additional tooth discovered during 2021 excavations. The specimens represent an adult with a small stature, a periadolescent aged approximately 11.5 years, and an immature individual aged approximately 7.7 years, thus offering a more complete demographic pe ..read more