Sprecher
Beschreibung
In October 2023, new excavations in the Lebanese dysodiles (Jdeidet Bkassine, Jezzine District, Lebanon) revealed a unique Early Cretaceous ecosystem (125 Ma, Lower Barremian), providing a new perspective on the Cretaceous Terrestrial Revolution. The Lebanese dysodiles are exceptional Gondwanian deposits finely preserving fossil organisms in connection, the latter having deposited in organic rich sediments of a freshwater lake, in the vicinity of volcanic edifices. Among the preserved organisms, a remarkably diverse plant assemblage was discovered. Preservation quality is exceptional, enabling detailed investigations using tomography, geochemical analyses, and microscopy.
The description and identification of this flora aim to understand how Lower Cretaceous floras responded to climatic changes and what fossil plant assemblages can reveal about the vegetation of European ecosystems during this period. To date, no exceptionally-preserved floral assemblage from the African realm has been investigated for this key interval, leaving the composition of transitional floral communities under tropical climates largely unknown. The flora of Jdeidet Bkassine is compared with those of two comparably-preserved and coeval sites, Las Hoyas (Spain) and Bernissart (Belgium).
Preliminary results reveal the presence of previously undocumented morphologies and taxa at Jdeidet Bkassine. At least twenty embryophyte morphotypes have been recognised; the flora being dominated by gymnosperms and ferns. Despite differences in excavation methods, sampling strategies, and the field collect duration, the flora taxonomic diversity currently recorded at Jdeidet Bkassine is similar to that documented at Las Hoyas, except for angiosperms, which have been recorded hitherto only as rare palynomorphs.