Patines et cortex de météorisation de grès du site rupestre d’Oum La Leg (Anti-Atlas, Maroc)

Within the framework of the European Commission's program “Patine du Desert” (DG Research; INCO-CT-FP6-2004-509100), partially concerning the preservation of Saharan engraved rock art, the approach led to the study of the sandstone patina from the rock art site of Oum La Leg (Anti-Atlas, Morocco). The rock and its Tazina school engravings are sometimes covered with a thin brown-ochre coating which only shows a dark patina, the desert patina. This film corresponds to a weathering cortex whose formation is contemporary with wet events from the Holocene period. On the surface, the patinas’ diversity is linked to the heterogeneous distribution of manganese oxides (birnessite and todorokite) due to a reorganisation which led to the incorporation of aeolian silts. Some dating suggestions are made to establish an ante quem age for the engraved lines.     

Lignites of Kutch,western India: Dinoflagellate biostratigraphy and palaeoclimate

The Eocene epoch in the Indian subcontinent was marked by widespread deposition of lignite and coal. While several of these deposits formed during the Early Eocene, corresponding to Early Eocene hyperthermal events, the lignites of Kutch in western India formed later during the Middle Eocene. An integrated biostratigraphy based on dinoflagellates and foraminifera assigns a Bartonian age to the succession, which likely corresponds to the time of the Middle Eocene warming. The spores, pollen, dinoflagellates and foraminifera suggest a restricted marine, near shore depositional environment adjacent to tropical rainforest. The lignites of Kutch suggest high precipitation during or just preceding the warm climate of the Middle Eocene.     

Le Plio-Pléistocène de Camerota(Italie méridionale): Géomorphologie et Paléoflores

Geomorphological investigations have been carried out in Camerota surroundings where marine microfaunas have been discovered. So, we can separate the Late Pliocene deposits from Calabrian and post-Calabrian levels. Preliminary palynological results show a vegetational evolution in relation with the climate. Leaf-remains give informations on the structure of the vegetation.     

Apports de la palynologie a la connaissance du Pliocène du Roussillon (sud de la France)

The present study illustrates clearly how pollen analysis may be applied to stratigraphy from a botanical point of view. Within a chronologically reliable frame (Middle Pliocene for the marine deposits on the basis of Foraminifera record; two subzones for continental deposits on the basis of Mammals record: Hautimagne for Terrats fauna, Sète for Serrat-d'en-Vacquer fauna), palynology provides a good stratigraphical boundary: the extinction of the Taxodiaceae. In a remblayage area, it is established that a continental level is not necessarily younger than a marine one unless they are superposed. Many profiles are replaced according to the «progradation of the pliocene gulf of Roussillon. The boundary between marine and continental deposits cuts through the chronological line of the Taxodiaceae extinction. The flora investigated (93 taxa) is the first known for the Pliocene of this area. The extinction of the Taxodiaceae in southern France has a climatic cause: the setting in of a mediterranean rhythm (dry summers). This extinction is much older than the one which took place in Italy (Tiberian boundary) and in the Netherlands (Reuverian-Pretiglian boundary).     

Analyse pollinique des dépôts lacustresdu Pléistocène inférieur de Banyoles (Bañolas,site de la Bòbila Ordis - Espagne): un élément nouveau dans la reconstitution de l'histoire paléoclimatique des régions méditerranéennes d'Europe occidentale

Clays from Bòbila Ordis near Banyoles have yielded a rich pollen flora. Three pollen zones are recognizable: the lower and the middle parts are dominated by components of a deciduous forest (with numerous exotic taxa); in the upper part, Pinus pollen and NAP (especially Compositae) are in a majority with an increase of mediterranean taxa towards the top. This floristic evolution may be connected with a climatic change characterized by a decrease in humidity which is itself linked to a world cooling. We suggest a possible relation with the pollen flora published by H. Elhai. The pollen diagram of Bòbila Ordis is the second so far established from Lower Pleistocene deposits in the Mediterranean countries of Western Europe; chronologically it follows the Bernasso (Languedoc) pollen diagram and confirms the latter results.     

Indications for a humid climate in the Western Desert of Egypt 11–10 Myr ago: evidence from Galagidae (Primates, Mammalia)

The timing of desertification of the Sahara Desert is poorly understood, with recent estimates indicating an onset of hyper-aridity during the Latest Miocene. Field work in Egypt in 2005 has led to the discovery of evidence that indicates that 11–10 Ma the Western Desert was covered in woodland. Fossiliferous cave breccia at Sheikh Abdallah, Western Desert, Egypt, has yielded a Late Miocene (11–10 Ma) microvertebrate fauna, which contains Galagidae, Microchiroptera, Macroscelididae, Soricidae, Erinaceidae, and Rodentia. The locality also yielded the remains of frogs, snakes, lizards, and birds. The fauna indicates a mean annual rainfall in excess of 500 mm and perhaps as much as 1,200 mm. This palaeoclimatic information is important because it reveals that the Sahara Desert, which is today the largest in the world, was either considerably smaller during the Late Miocene than it is today, or that it did not yet exist as a continuous hyper-arid belt right across the continent. This data accords with estimates of a Latest Miocene (8–7 Ma) increase in aridity in the Sahara. To cite this article: M. Pickford et al., C. R. Palevol 5 (2006).     

New evidence for the greater noctule bat (Nyctalus lasiopterus) in the Late Pleistocene of western Europe

This article reports a new record of the greater noctule Nyctalus lasiopterus (Schreber, 1780) in the Late Pleistocene of Europe. A fragment of a left mandible from this species was collected in Layer O (around 55 ka) from the Abric Romaní rock shelter, providing evidence of the presence of the greater noctule in north-eastern Spain during the latest Late Pleistocene. The relevance of this new record, which is geographically not reported up to now in the area, is discussed in terms of environmental changes.     

Le Paléoenvironnement des chasseursde Terra Amata (Nice,Alpes-Maritimes) au Pléistocène moyen. La flore et la faune de grands mammifères

The «living floors of the Acheulean huntersof Terra Amata are situated in their stratigraphical framework; they are included in a beach ridge and in a dune ascribed to the Mindelian glaciation and followed by a substantial paleosol ascribed to the Mindel-Riss interglacial. Palynological studies made in the deposits of the Middle Pleistocene show a rather great rate of forest-trees. The relative importance of trees growing in cool and wet areas and of thermophilous or typically mediterranean species, in every layers, allows to indicate a succession of climatic oscillations inside of a long and rather mild period. Among large mammals, the absence of any archaic form and of any recently appeared form, does not make it possible neither to confirm nor to exclude the hypothesis of a «Mindelian age for this fauna. The faunistic assemblage likewise corresponds to a temperate climate and a forest environment.     

Nouvelles donnéessur les mollusques continentaux du Thanétien inférieur sous-pyrénéen. Interprétation stratigraphique et paléoécologique

Investigations carried out on the argillaceouslacustrine sedimentary rocks interbedded with marine lower Thanetian (lower Eocene) in the sub-pyrenean basin of southern France allowed the discovery of a micro-molluscan fauna: Carychium (Carychium) munieriBriart & Cornet, Carychium (Carychiopsis) cairocurbum nov. sp. and Valvata (Cincinna) indecisaCossmann. C. munieri and V. indecisa are known also from the upper Montian (early lower Eocene) of Belgium.Bivariant and multivariant analysis of several populations of C. munieri seem to document the presence of two morphotypes in the Montian of Belgium, only one persisted into the upper Thanetian in southern France.In the belgian Montian, these faunas appearedwhen climate was becoming warm.     

A new Mastodonsauroid Temnospondyl from the Triassic of Algeria: Implications for the biostratigraphy and palaeoenvironments of the Zarzaïtine Series,northern Sahara

We describe a new species of mastodonsauroid temnospondyl from Algeria, Stanocephalosaurus amenasensis nov. sp., on the basis of two exquisite skulls from a Lagerstätte found in the lowermost formation of the Zarzaïtine Series, Illizi Basin, in the area of “La Reculée”, In Amenas region, Algeria. The new species is characterized by subtriangular nostrils with concave lateral borders; small orbits; postfrontals posteriorly very wide; very elongate parietals; smoothly concave posterior margin of the skull; ovoid anterior palatal vacuities; very posteriorly pointed choanae; oval interpterygoid fenestrae; and a short anterior extension of the cultriform process of the parasphenoid. S. amenasensis is different than the Algerian taxa previously erected by Lehman (1971)–“Parotosaurus lapparenti” and “Wellesaurus bussoni”–which we consider nomina dubia. It enlarges the distribution of the genus in northern Gondwana and supports the Early-Middle Triassic age of the lowermost formation of the Zarzaïtine Series. It also suggests that the local palaeoclimate was very seasonal and these aquatic amphibians died massively in a dewatering sebkha.