European Palaeobotany and Palynology Conference 2026

Digital Fossil Mining (DFM) is a new technique established by one of us (YI) that enables all fossils and other inclusions within a rock to be recorded as high-resolution tomographic images in a fully digitized form. The method has already produced significant results, including the discovery and reconstruction of marine organisms and terrestrial plants preserved in Cretaceous calcareous...

Silica sinters deposited by hot-spring activity form Lagerstätten with abundant three-dimensional, cell-preserved fossils, as exemplified by the Rhynie chert. Palaeoecological interpretations of fossil sinters have drawn on modern large-scale geothermal provinces to infer their environmental settings and formation processes. Well-documented modern examples of silica sinters recording...

Lycophytes are the most ancient lineage of vascular plants, first appearing during the Silurian (~420Ma). They underwent a divergence into two lineages: zosterophylls and lycopsids. Despite the zosterophylls initial success, they underwent a rapid decline during the mid-Devonian and vanished by the end-Devonian. By contrast, lycopsids diversified, and persist today. Explaining these divergent...

Recent fossil discoveries and advances in plant phylogeny have renewed debate about the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of land plants and the evolution of its fundamental organs and tissues. Here, we re-examine the conducting system of Horneophyton lignieri (≡ Hornea lignieri), one of seven land plants preserved in the Rhynie Chert. Kidston and Lang (1920) originally described its...

Despite representing an inherent phase in the life cycle of embryophytes, gametophytes are exceedingly rare in the fossil record compared to sporophytes. Nevertheless, such findings are critical for understanding the physiology and evolution of early land plants. The Early Devonian Rhynie chert (UK) has been instrumental in this regard, notably through the works of Remy and Remy (U. Münster)...

Stomata are openings in the epidermis of plants, bounded by turgor-driven guard cells that open and close to control water loss, gas exchange, and regulate internal temperature. The fossil record preserves evidence that stomata are ancient and highly conserved features that develop on above-ground plant organs of the majority of plant groups and were likely present in the common ancestor of...

In today's ecosystems, various groups of organisms live in dead plant material; in most cases, these are saprotrophs that participate in biological decomposition, thereby returning the plant components to the nutrient cycle. In the Early Devonian Rhynie ecosystem, this is unlikely to have been much different; however, descriptions of such organisms are rather rare, even though decaying plant...

Microorganisms have been key components of terrestrial ecosystems for over 400 million years, performing roles similar to those they fulfill in modern environments. Despite their frequently excellent preservation in ancient fossil deposits, microorganisms are challenging to document due to their small size and the limitations of brightfield microscopy. Fluorescence-based imaging techniques...

The affinities of Prototaxites are currently strongly debated. A further question is why Prototaxites is found together with Pachytheca in Silurian/earliest Devonian sediments from their earliest records. The small number of large, trunk-like, Emsian and younger Prototaxites share similar anatomy with the more numerus older fragments. All comprise aggregations of tubes that show...

Prototaxites was the first giant organism to inhabit the terrestrial surface, represented by columnar fossils reaching up to eight meters in height from the Early Devonian. Its peculiar anatomy has led to debate over its systematic affinity for more than 165 years. Currently, two main hypotheses exist: Prototaxites was either a fungus or a member of an entirely extinct lineage. Today,...

Before land plants came to dominate terrestrial habitats, metre-tall, columnar organisms of unknown systematic classification – known by the generic name Prototaxites – were the largest land-dwelling organisms during the Early and Middle Devonian. The size and biomass of these organisms suggest that Prototaxites provided a potentially rich food source for arthropods and other terrestrial...

The Rhynie cherts (~407 Ma), a Devonian hydrothermal hot spring system, contains the most complete early terrestrial ecosystem (Garwood et al., 2020; Rice et al., 2002). Taxonomically diverse fossilised arthropods (Dunlop & Garwood, 2018) within the cherts are preserved in a precipitated silica sinter in cellular detail, providing unparalleled insight into the form and function of early...