European Palaeobotany and Palynology Conference 2026

A new diverse acritarch flora has been recovered from siltstones and claystones of the Landeyran Formation from the Early Ordovician Cabrières Biota and coeval Landeyran section in the southern Montagne Noire, France. Never studied since the late 20th century, the current study enriches the knowledge on the acritarchs from the southern Montagne Noire by the identification in this moderately to...

The Middle Ordovician of the palaeocontinent Baltica provides some of the best preserved and most diverse acritarch assemblages of the lower Palaeozoic. Acritarch research started with the pioneering studies in the 1930s by Alfred Eisenack, who first collected erratics from the southern coast of the Baltic Sea (Eisenack, 1938). Being fully aware of the morphological variability, Eisenack...

The term ‘peteinoid acritarchs’ derives from the genus Peteinosphaeridium Staplin, Jansonius and Stanley 1965 from Öland (Sweden). They are described in the literature as displaying a large morphological variability in their processes. This had been noticed and discussed by Alfred Eisenack since the 1930s, who evoked caution when assigning new species and/or genera. However, several new...

Middle Ordovician (Darriwilian) cryptospore assemblages from Saudi Arabia constitute one the world’s oldest record of earliest land plants, thus providing critical information on early evolution of spore-producing plants. In living cryptogams, the tapetum or tapetal-like tissue that lines the sporangial locule produces sporopollenin which is then deposited exogenously onto the developing spore...

Nematoclasts are smooth-walled and banded organic tubes of nematophytes origin found as dispersed elements in Silurian non-marine deposits. Recent molecular compositional analyses from the Rhynie Chert by Loron et al. indicate Prototaxites taiti to be distinct from fungi, eroding support for fungal affinity of nematoclasts at large. We analyzed a set of Nematothallus lobata specimens of...

Vitrinite Reflectance (VRo) determination is the standard method used to estimate the thermal maturity of sedimentary basins but vitrinite (derived from ‘woody’ plant tissues) is absent in pre-Devonian rocks. Acritarch Palynomorph Darkness Index (PDI) can be used as a proxy for VRo in pre-Devonian marine strata. In principle, miospore (trilete spore) PDI can be used as a proxy for VRo in...

Among the few sections in Armenia exposing the Frasnian–Famennian critical interval, the Ertych is the only one known to yield abundant and diverse palynomorph assemblages. Previous studies documented a well-preserved miospore assemblage assigned to the lower torquata–gracilis Biozone, indicating a Late Frasnian age for the lower to middle part of the section. However, its diversity and...

Exposed Devonian rocks are known only from northwest Saudi Arabia, adjacent to the Precambrian Arabian Shield. Most of the Devonian deposits, which comprises the upper Tawil, Jauf and most of the Jubah formations, occur in subsurface, both in the northwest but also in eastern Saudi Arabia. Some exploration wells have penetrated up to 2,300 ft of Devonian section throughout eastern Saudi Arabia...