In recent years, in some papers and manuscripts published in and submitted to the Journal of Palaeogeography (Chinese Edition and English Edition), the authors named the rocks or rock types as “microfacies” or “lithofacies”, named the microfeatures in thin-sections under microscope as “microfacies”, and named the macrofeatures of rocks as “macrofacies”. I wrote two short papers “Words of the Editor-in-Chief — Rocks are not microfacies” (Feng, Journal of Palaeogeography 19(5):II 2017) and “Words of the Editor-in-Chief — Rocks are not lithofacies” (Feng, Journal of Palaeogeography 20(3):452-452, 2018) which were in Chinese and published in the Journal of Palaeogeography (Chinese Edition). However, they did not attract much attention of readers in China and outside China. In addition, in 1980s, some Chinese sedimentologists proposed “subfacies” and “microfacies” based on the macrofeatures of rocks from outcrops and drilling cores. However, the definition of this “microfacies” is totally different from the “microfacies” proposed by foreign sedimentologists in 1940s based on the microfeatures in thin-sections under microscope. These problems appeared repeatedly and forced me, as the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Palaeogeography (Chinese Edition and English Edition), to observe the policy of “A hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend” , to write new papers “A review on the definitions of terms of sedimentary facies” both in Chinese and in English, to clarify the definitions of the terms of sedimentary facies, i.e., “facies”, “lithofacies”, two “microfacies”, “macrofacies”, “subfacies”, etc. I hope that the new papers will attract attention of readers worldwide and they can write papers and participate in the discussion and contending of these problems, strive for getting some common understandings, and therefore promote the progress and development of sedimentology and palaeogeography.
The Upper Cretaceous (early Cenomanian) Bahariya Formation of Egypt has an outstanding reputation for its wealth of vertebrate remains, including a variety of iconic dinosaurs, like the carnivorous Spinosaurus and Carcharodontosaurus, as well as the herbivorous Aegyptosaurus and Paralititan. Besides these dinosaur fossils, the Bahariya Formation yielded also a wealth of invertebrate and plant remains, but even today many aspects concerning the continental palaeoenvironments reflected in these deposits (including the occurrence of palaeo-wildfires) have not been studied in detail. So far six distinct macro-charcoal bearing levels could be identified within the type section of the Bahariya Formation at Gabal El Dist profile, one of the most prolific outcrops of this formation in terms of fossil occurrence located in the north of the Bahariya Oasis, Western Desert, Egypt. Most of the charcoal investigated by means of SEM originates from ferns, pointing to a considerable proportion of this plant group within the palaeo-ecosystems that experienced fires. Gymnosperms and (putative) angiosperms have less frequently been identified. The collected data present evidence that the landscapes at the northern shores of Gondwana repeatedly experienced palaeo-wildfires, adding extra proof to previous statements that the Late Cretaceous was a fiery world on a global scale.
Various microbial fabrics characterize late Moscovian mounds in Houchang Town, southern Guizhou, South China. The dominant components of the mounds are microbial boundstones with stromatolitic structures, irregular oncoid-like forms, and wrinkle structures. Calcimicrobes recognized in the mounds include Girvanella, Ortonella, Wetheredella-like, Palaeomicrocodium-like, and some problematic calcimicrobes occurring in deposits between microbial boundstones, in thrombolitic textures, and in some intraclasts. Microbial carbonates are common in the substrate and interior of the mounds, including thrombolitic textures, microstromatolites, microbial ooids, oncoids, irregular encrusted layers, microbial mat debris, and microbial micrite. Calcimicrobes and microbial carbonates played an important role in the construction of the mounds: Girvanella might have contributed as a source of lime mud that formed the mound and stabilized the coral frame; thrombolitic mats could trap and fix sediments and bioclasts, contributing to the stabilization of substrate and mound limestones; and, microbial boundstone, clotted micrite and micritized bioclast could provide a hard substrate for encrusting metazoans (e.g., bryozoans, Ivanovia). The abundant microbial fabrics in the mounds indicate that microbial activity was widespread in Moscovian reef mounds in southern Guizhou, and this suggests that microbial organisms were the primary mound builders in the study area.
Plesiosaurs are one of the common groups of aquatic reptiles in the Mesozoic, which mainly lived in marine environments. Freshwater plesiosaurs are rare in the world, especially from the Jurassic. The present paper reports the first freshwater plesiosaur, represented by four isolated teeth from the Middle Jurassic fluviolacustrine strata of Qingtujing area, Jinchang City, Gansu Province, Northwest China. These teeth are considered to come from one individual. The comparative analysis of the corresponding relationship between the body and tooth sizes of the known freshwater plesiosaur shows that Jinchang teeth represent a small-sized plesiosaurian. Based on the adaptive radiation of plesiosaurs and the palaeobiogeographical context, we propose a scenario of a river leading to the Meso-Tethys in the Late Middle Jurassic in Jinchang area, which may have provided a channel for the seasonal migration of plesiosaurs.
The northern part of the eastern margin of the extensional Neogene Teruel Basin (central-eastern Spain) consists of a non-linear, zigzag fault zone made of alternating ca. 2 km long, NNW-SSE trending segments and shorter NNE-SSW ones. Good outcrop conditions made possible a comprehensive integrated stratigraphic and structural study, especially focused on coarse clastic sediments deposited along the basin margin. Well-exposed stratal relationships with boundary faults, allowed the analysis of tectonic influence on sedimentation. Synsedimentary deformation includes growth faulting, rollover anticlines, and monoclines and associated onlap stratal terminations, angular unconformities, and other complex growth strata geometries. One of them is the onlap-over-rollover bed arrangement described here for the first time, which reveals the competition between tectonic subsidence and sedimentary supply. Both, the structural inheritance (dense Mesozoic fracture grid) and the dominant, nearly ‘multidirectional´ (1 vertical, 2≈?3), Pliocene extensional regime with Σ3 close to E-W, are considered to have controlled the margin structure and evolution. Tectono-stratigraphic evolution includes: (i) reactivation of inherited NNW-SSE faults and development of W-SW-directed small alluvial fans (SAF) while NNE-SSW segments acted as gentle relay ramp zones; (ii) progressive activation of NNE-SSW faults and development of NW-directed very small alluvial fans (VSAF); during stages i and ii sediments were trapped close to the margin, avoiding widespread progradation; (iii) linking of NNW-SSE and NNE-SSW structural segments, overall basin sinking and widespread alluvial progradation; (iv) fault activity attenuation and alluvial retrogradation. The particular structure and kinematic evolution of this margin controlled alluvial system patterns. Size of alluvial fans, directly set up at the border faults, was conditioned by the narrowness of the margin, small catchment areas, and proximity between faults, which prevented the development of large alluvial fans. The size of the relay zones, only a few hundred meters wide, acted in the same way, avoiding them to act as large sediment transfer areas and large alluvial fans to be established. These features make the Teruel Basin margin different to widely described extensional margins models.
In this paper, we provide two new Triassic palaeomagnetic poles from Winterswijk, the Netherlands, in the stable interior of the Eurasian plate. They were respectively collected from the Anisian (~247-242 Ma) red marly limestones of the sedimentary transition of the Buntsandstein Formation to the dark grey limestones of the basal Muschelkalk Formation, and from the Rhaetian (~208-201 Ma) shallow marine claystones that unconformably overlie the Muschelkalk Formation. The magnetization is carried by hematite or magnetite in the Anisian limestones, and iron sulfides and magnetite in the Rhaetian sedimentary rocks, revealing for both a large normal polarity overprint with a recent (geocentric axial dipole field) direction at the present latitude of the locality. Alternating field and thermal demagnetization occasionally reveal a stable magnetization decaying towards the origin, interpreted as the Characteristic Remanent Magnetization. Where we find a pervasive (normal polarity) overprint, we can often still determine well-defined great-circle solutions. Our interpreted palaeomagnetic poles include the great-circle solutions. The Anisian magnetic pole has declination D±?Dx = 210.8±3.0°, inclination I±?Ix = -26.7±4.9°, with a latitude, longitude of 45.0°, 142.0° respectively, K = 43.9, A95 = 2.9°, N = 56. The Rhaetian magnetic pole has declination D±?Dx = 32.0±8.7°, inclination I±?Ix = 50.9±8.1°, with a latitude, longitude of 60.6°, 123.9° respectively, K = 19.3, A95 = 7.4°, N = 21. The poles plot close to the predicted location of global apparent polar wander paths (GAPWaPs) in Eurasian coordinates and are feasible for future apparent polar wander path construction. They confirm that the intracontinental, shallow-marine Germanic Basin, in which the Muschelkalk Formation was deposited, existed at a palaeolatitude of 14.1° [11.3, 17.1] N, in a palaeo-environment reminding of the Persian Gulf today. In Rhaetian times, palaeolatitudes of 31.6° [24.8, 39.8] N were reached, on its way to the modern latitude of 52°N.
In this reply, I respond to 18 issues associated with comments made by Zavala (e.g., inverse- to normally- graded sequence, origin of massive sands, experimental sandy debris flows, tidal rhythmites, facies models, etc.), and 10 issues associated with comments made by Van Loon et al. (e.g., 16 types of hyperpycnal flows, anthropogenic hyperpycnal flow, etc.).
