European Palaeobotany and Palynology Conference 2026

The intra-continental Saar-Nahe basin formed in a half-graben structure during the variscan orogeny recording 40 mio years in 6500m of Carboniferous to Permian deposits.
Large scale coal formation occurred in the Westphalian and Stephanian stages of the upper Carboniferous. Excellent preservation of plant fossils focused interest on the floras since the 19th century with emphasis on taxonomical classification.

The completeness of the upper Carboniferous sequence and the abundance of macrofossils also allow for a detailed reconstruction of the vegetation succession throughout the major environmental changes that occurred towards the Permian.

Here we present six floras from the center of the Saar-Nahe basin located in the vicinity of Saarbrucken. Overall, the flora assemblages are characterized by lycopsids, filicopsids, pteridosperms, sphenopsids and cordaites. In the stratigraphic succession, the dominance of the various groups significantly changes where especially the loss of lycopsids and the increase in pteridosperms and cordaites in the Stephanian reflects the intensifying global drought towards the Permian. Interestingly, higher lycophyte abundance is observed in the youngest flora, which may relate to more local geomorphological and environmental conditions within the basin.

With a temporal resolution of less than 10 mio years between the floras and the highly regional representation of the upper Carboniferous, this study advances our understanding of the climatic changes associated with the large scale tectonic reorganization during the late Paleozoic.