European Palaeobotany and Palynology Conference 2026

This project investigates the interplay between climate forcing and ecosystem response during Middle Eocene hyperthermal events (48–47 Ma), brief periods of rapid warming with major carbon cycle and biological changes. These events offer insight into climate sensitivity and biological adaptation for evaluating future scenarios. The study is structured around two complementary components....

Eastern Australia was subjected to extensive intraplate volcanism throughout the Cenozoic and lava fields and volcanoes attest to our volcanic past. Floras buried by volcaniclastics include autochthonous elements, e.g. carbonised wood and roots in basalt flows, trees buried by ash falls and floras buried by volcanic activity. Transported leaves and branches occur as dispersed foliage in high...

The diversification of epiphytic and climbing plants during the late Paleozoic has commonly been linked to the development of densely vegetated swamp forests dominated by marattialean tree ferns that formed relatively closed canopies. Within the early Permian Wuda Tuff Flora, the zygopterid fern Nemejcopteris haiwangii was previously interpreted as a ground-cover plant characterized by a...

The Eastern Himalayan region of Sikkim preserves Gondwana-equivalent sediments exposed within tectonic windows and unconformably overlain by older lithological units. Owing to thrust-related deformation and limited preservation, both mega- and microfossil records are sparse. Early reports of the Glossopteris-Gangamopteris flora were provided by Hooker (1854), Mallet (1874), Acharya et al....

We report several cases of upright permineralized stumps and in situ fossil forests preserved in felsic volcanic ash or reworked volcanigenic sediments in upper Permian strata exposed in coastal outcrops of the high-palaeolatitude Sydney Basin, Australia. The stumps are rooted in coal seams and are associated with transported logs and organic debris. Adpression floras in associated fluvial...

The Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM; ~56 Ma) represents one of the most rapid global warming events of the Cenozoic, yet terrestrial ecosystem responses in Central Asia remain poorly constrained. Here, we present a quantitative palynological record from the Xining Basin (northeastern Tibetan Plateau), spanning the late Paleocene to early Eocene, to reconstruct vegetation and climate...

The western Amazon was extensively influenced by marine incursions. This is evident from the fossil record, which includes mangrove pollen, dinoflagellate cysts and microforaminiferal organic linings. Rhizophoraceae were common, but also Florschuetzia-type pollen were observed in cored sediments from westernmost Brazil. Here we investigate whether sonneratioid mangroves of Southeast (SE)...

When ecosystems are devastated by environmental crises and mass extinction events, recovery is rarely immediate. Instead, the first plants to reclaim these disrupted landscapes are often hardy opportunists that establish short-lived pioneer communities before more complex forests can return. We show that a similar ecological response followed the end-Triassic mass extinction, approximately 201...

The Triassic-Jurassic (T-J) boundary saw global ecological upheaval driven by volcanism, with extremely elevated atmospheric CO2 (>2000 ppm) and temperatures (GMST >24°C). Extensive community turnover and desertification are accompanied by directional changes in heat avoidance leaf traits. We explore the interaction of traits, constrained by fossils (paleo-traits: leaf width (w), maximum...

The Early–Middle Jurassic represents a key greenhouse interval marked by major environmental perturbations associated with the Karoo–Ferrar Large Igneous Province events (K–FLIPs) and the Pliensbachian–Toarcian boundary event. Although marine records have documented coupled carbon- and mercury-cycle disturbances during this interval, their expression in terrestrial ecosystems remains less well...

The present study documents a macrofloral assemblage from Eriksdal in southern Sweden. The assemblage includes leaves, seeds, pollen-bearing microsporangia, wood, roots and is complemented by palynological and sedimentological analyses to provide a comprehensive paleoenvironmental reconstruction of the site. Our results indicate forests dominated by ginkgophytes and mixed-conifers (cypress,...

Plants could be considered as ‘living rocks’ based on their multi-elemental composition. They play a disproportionately important role in terrestrial biogeochemical cycling of elements compared with other living organisms, particularly at times of extreme environmental change such as mass extinction intervals. It is widely acknowledged that terrestrial plants are ecosystem engineers however...

The plant fossil record is naturally biased and quantifiable leaf traits vary greatly by preservation conditions. Like all living organisms, plant chemical composition consists of a suite of bioelements, essential for survival, homeostasis and competition. Here we extend the ‘biogeochemical niche’ and ‘elementome’ hypotheses to deep-time floras on the basis that stable isotopes of many...

Increased occurrences of malformed spores and pollen during several of the mass extinctions of the Phanerozoic suggest that land plants plants were subjected to significant environmental stress during these crises. For the end-Triassic mass extinction, synchronicity between elevated concentrations of Hg in sedimentary successions and increased amounts and severity in malformations of fern...

Malformed pteridophyte spores occur abundantly in conjunction with the end-Triassic mass-extinction (ETME), ~201.6 million years ago, one of the ‘Big Five’ mass-extinction events of the past 500 million years. Based on high concentrations of sedimentary mercury (Hg) in beds that contain abundant malformed spores, it has been hypothesized that volcanogenic Hg-emission from large-scale volcanism...