Early Eocene microfossils from carbonate-cemented volcanic ashes (cementstones) of the Greifswalder Oie island, southern Baltic Sea, have been investigated. In addition to numerous siliceous microfossils such as diatoms, silicoflagellates and sponge spicules, a monospecific foraminiferal assemblage ( Ammobaculites oieensis sp. nov.) is recorded and documented here in detail. The new species is characterised by an agglutinated...

The Toarcian Posidonia Shale and contemporaneously formed sediments document an interval of black shale sedimentation and organic matter accumulation in the Central European Basin System (CEBS), lasting a few hundred thousand years up to 7 myr. The remarkable stable organo-detrital depositional regime in the deeper basin was accompanied by repetitive changes from organo-detrital to detrital depositional regimes in the shallowe...

A new species and genus of stem-group ‘soft corals’ (Anthozoa: Octocorallia: Alcyonacea) is described and illustrated in detail, as well as compared to other species of the sparse octocorallian fossil record. Sueciatractos leipnitzae gen. et sp. nov. has been collected from the Upper Silurian Hemse beds of the Isle of Gotland, Sweden. The new taxon differs from all other taxa by its unique form of sclerites which were fused at...

In an exceptional preservation state, bones conserve the entire pattern of extracellular bone matrix proteins over thousands or sometimes even millions of years. Here we present typical extracellular bone matrix proteins, which were extracted from a 3.0-million-year-old gomphothere proboscidean, and identified with special antibodies. For the first time, osteonectin, osteopontin and BMP-2 were confidently identified from the e...

The area of forest plantations is increasing worldwide helping to meet timber demand and protect natural forests. However, with global change, monospecific plantations are increasingly vulnerable to abiotic and biotic disturbances. As an adaption measure we need to move to plantations that are more diverse in genotypes, species, and structure, with a design underpinned by science. TreeDivNet, a global network of tree diversity...