It has been proposed that the extant bivalve family Plicatulidae was derived from Prospondylidae during the Triassic, but the repeated evolution of species with transitional morphologies makes the differentiation between the two families difficult. Based on new material from the Hettangian Germig Formation of southern Xizang (Tibet), a new subgenus Persia (Nyalamia) and a new species Eoplicatula nianduoensis are proposed. P. (Nyalamia) is closely allied to the prospondylid Persia s.s. in shell outline and external ornamentation, but it is distinguished by the presence of resilial teeth and stronger crura, which enhances the mechanical strength of the hinge region. Hence, P. (Nyalamia) is phylogenetically linked to Prospondylidae but evolved character traits that are more typical of Plicatulidae. We suggest that the evolution of additional hinge elements was an evolutionary response to increased predation pressure during the initial Mesozoic marine revolution, which fostered iteration in the evolution of strongly interlocking hinges in cementing bivalves. Whether Early Jurassic Harpax evolved from Eoplicatula or from P. (Nyalamia) is currently unresolved, but if the latter option is confirmed, the taxonomy of Plicatulidae would be further complicated. This study reveals the complex evolutionary relationship between the two families and highlights the role of intensified predation pressure during the Mesozoic in promoting increased structural complexity of the hinge systems in cementing bivalves. (c) 2026 Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights are reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies.

The Qiangtang Basin, Tibetan Plateau, is a Mesozoic marine basin characterised by well-developed Jurassic marine sedimentary systems. The South Qiangtang Basin, being closer to the Bangong-Nujiang suture zone, exhibits more localised and complex Jurassic strata compared to the North Qiangtang Basin. This study focuses on the Middle Jurassic 114 Daoban Formation in the South Qiangtang Basin, which consists of marine siliciclastic and carbonate rocks with abundant bivalve fossils, particularly Liostrea birmanica. We analyse the taxonomy, shell microstructure, and palaeoecology of L. birmanica. Based on its shell morphology and sedimentary context, we suggest that L. birmanica adopted a reclining lifestyle on soft substrates, representing an adaptation to soft substratum environments. The microstructure of the shells, composed mainly of irregularly foliated layers, distinguishes Liostrea from morphologically similar genera. The occurrence of monospecific shell beds of L. birmanica across a broad area suggests their potential as regional marker beds for refining the Jurassic stratigraphic framework in the South Qiangtang Basin. This research contributes to a better understanding of the palaeoecology and biostratigraphy of Jurassic marine systems in the Tibetan Plateau.

Solar system gravitational interactions are embedded in Earth's record of climate, providing a way to bypass the 60 Myr limit imposed by chaos. Presently with a 2.4 Myr period, the Mars-Earth beat cycle of orbital perihelion frequencies is particularly sensitive to chaotic diffusion, potentially varying by more than a million years. Early Mesozoic (252 to 145 Ma) strata provide some constraints on this cycle, with evidence of a swing through most of the solution space from 1.8 Myr at 210 Ma to 2.5 Myr at 190 Ma and back to 1.6 Myr at 180 Ma. However, only the 1.8 Myr cycle is corroborated by geochronologic data and the 1.6 Myr period is disputed. Here, we show that variations in land-plant-dominated stable carbon isotopic ratios (δ13Corg) from the lacustrine, paleo-high-latitude Sangonghe Formation (Junggar Basin, northwestern China), reveal at least three 1.6 Myr Mars-Earth beat cycles centered at 183 Ma, tracking atmospheric CO2 isotopic composition in Earth's exchangeable carbon reservoirs. Furthermore, the middle cycle includes the famous Jenkyns Event, expressed here by poleward migration of cheirolepidaceous conifers driven by CO2 warming from the Karoo-Ferrar large igneous province (LIP). Our data do not, however, support major, LIP-triggered input of isotopically light carbon and instead support CO2 amplification of local processes via warming and ecosystem change. Although requiring additional independent geochronological support, Sangonghe data help provide empirical constraints for filtering orbital solutions, tightening initial conditions, and testing gravitational models, as well as showing how extrinsic cyclical processes interact with a tectonic event, the Karoo-Ferrar LIP.

The Carnian Pluvial Episode (CPE; 234-232 million years ago) is an iconic but poorly understood hyperthermal event. Here, we present an integrated high-resolution (~2-10 kyr) multi-proxy record from a Carnian lacustrine succession of the Junggar Basin of northwestern China. We find that the rapid CPE onset (~15.8 kyr) could have been the result of volcanism and subsequent surface carbon-cycle feedbacks. The CPE terrestrial carbon cycling, at a scale of ± 1‰ (δ13Corg), displays an in-phase relationship with the 405-kyr-long-eccentricity parameter, paralleling the warmhouse climate-carbon-cycle interactions throughout the Oligo-Miocene. The CPE hydrological cycle was typified by increased aridification in continental interiors and multiple precipitation centres at low-latitude eastern regions of Pangea and at the poles. The carbon and hydrological cycle changes of the CPE include features reminiscent of other warm events, suggesting they may share key characteristics and hold important clues to Earth system functioning.

Collective cognition is often mentioned as one of the advantages of group living. But which factors actually facilitate group smarts? To answer this, we compared how individuals and groups of either ants or people tackle an identical ...Biological ensembles use collective intelligence to tackle challenges together, but suboptimal coordination can undermine the effectiveness of group cognition. Testing whether collective cognition exceeds that of the individual is often impractical since ...

The Xunhua Basin, a subbasin of the Longzhong Basin in an arid region of the northeastern Tibetan Plateau, hosts a thick succession of Upper Cenozoic fluvial-lacustrine sediments containing climate-sensitive freshwater mollusks, which can provide key insights into the uplift history of the Tibetan Plateau and its relationship to global climate change. In this study, we studied six genera and eleven species of freshwater mussels of the family Unionidae from the Upper Miocene Liushu Formation of the Xunhua Basin. These genera include Unio, Acuticosta, Anodonta, Cristaria, Lanceolaria and Ptychorhynchus. The fossils not only enhance our understanding of biological diversity on the Miocene Tibetan Plateau but also shed light on the biological response to Late Cenozoic orogenic uplift and environmental changes. The Unionidae family is present in modern China mainly in freshwater lakes on the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River Basin, i.e., in a humid subtropical monsoonal climate, and it has been extinct in northwestern China (including Qinghai Province) since the Late Miocene. This modern distribution implies that environmental conditions in the Xunhua Basin during the Late Miocene were substantially more humid than at present. Such a sharp contrast in habitat to that of the modern Xunhua Basin implies that a Late Miocene climate shift on the NE Tibetan Plateau occurred after 8.2 Ma, i.e., a climatic drying and cooling trend triggered both by regional tectonic uplift and global climate change, which significantly impacted freshwater ecosystems in the Xunhua Basin.

The Arabia-Eurasia convergence led to the uplift of the Zagros orogenic belt and the outward propagation of the fold-and-thrust system. In this paper we focus on the Miocene strata in southwestern Iran to study the and uplift history of the Iranian Plateau. establishment of a time scale ranging from 14 Ma to 10 Ma. Petrographic data of sandstones indicate a remarkable change in the provenance of the sediments from feldspar sandstone to lithic-dominated sandstone beginning at 13 Ma. The U-Pb ages of detrital zircons also demonstrate a dramatic shift at 13 Ma. Based on these new data, we discuss the uplift and denudation processes of the Zagros orogenic belt. During the late Oligocene to early Miocene (25-17 Ma), what is pied by a vast epicontinental sea, and both uplift due to the initial Arabia-Eurasia collision. During the middle Miocene (17-13 Ma), the source material was mainly eroded from enced some uplift but with limited height and thus could not have provided a large amount of source material to the foreland basin. After 13 Ma, the I3igh Zagros underwent accelerated uplift and became a new source region for the infill of the foreland basin. In this study, we provide new evidence for the uplift and denudation history of the SSZ and I3igh Zagros during the Neogene.

The non-marine bivalve Ferganoconcha occurred widely in palaeolakes in the high-middle latitude of northern China, Siberia and Central Asia during the Early and Middle Jurassic and was an important member of these lacustrine ecosystems. The diagnostic features and phylogenetic position of Ferganoconcha are still under debate. Here, based on nearly one hundred of Ferganoconcha specimens from the lacustrine and fluvial facies of the Junggar Basin in northwestern China, it is clearly shown that its most important distinctive features are the thin and flatted to weakly inflated shell covered with wrinkled ornament and the ligament is well-developed. This kind of shell indicate that the Ferganoconcha is a weak suspension feeder, burrowing rapidly and living in fine-soft substrata of the ‘low energy’ environments. In addition, we conclude that the dispersal pattern of the Ferganoconcha generally followed the cool to temperate and humid paleoclimate zone in northern China during the Early to Middle Jurassic, making the genus a possible palaeclimatic indicator.

The middle Mesozoic of the southern Junggar Basin is a source of abundant Late Triassic-Jurassic non-marine and Early Jurassic marine-littoral bivalves. The bivalve chronology provides a framework for dating the strata and documents Early Jurassic transgressions and the end-Triassic mass extinction in the Junggar Basin. The first occurrences (FOs) and last occurrences (LOs) of Utschamiella cf. tungussica and Utschamiella cf. obrutschevi lie in the basal upper Rhaetian. The FOs of Ferganoconcha sibirica, Ferganoconcha subcentralis, Unio manasensis, Unio mirabilis and Waagenoperna are at, and the FOs of Margaritifera isfarensis, Tutuella rotunda and Tutuella chachlovi adjoin, the base of the middle Sinemurian. The LOs of Yananoconcha hengshanensis and Waagenoperna are at the Lower-Middle Jurassic boundary. The LOs of Psilunio, Cuneopsis and F. subcentralis are near the Middle-Upper Jurassic boundary. Non-marine bivalves disappeared in the late Rhaetian, due to a sudden Norian-Rhaetian temperature drop. New forms did not return until the Sinemurian, when the climate warmed. The transgressions created low-relief terrestrial environments, in which organisms including bivalves thrived, leading to the formation of large quantities of coal, oil and gas. The Junggar Basin shifted from Arctic to subtropical latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere between the Early and Middle Jurassic.

Northeast China's Early Cretaceous Yixian Formation preserves spectacular fossils that have proved extraordinarily important in testing evolutionary hypotheses involving the origin of birds and the distribution of feathers among nonavian dinosaurs. These fossils occur either flattened with soft tissue preservation (including feathers and color) in laminated lacustrine strata or as three-dimensional (3D) skeletons in "life-like" postures in more massive deposits. The relationships of these deposits to each other, their absolute ages, and the origin of the extraordinary fossil preservation have been vigorously debated for nearly a half century, with the prevailing view being that preservation was linked to violent volcanic eruptions or lahars, similar to processes that preserved human remains at Pompeii. We present high-precision zircon U-Pb geochronology from cores and outcrops, demonstrating that Yixian Formation accumulation rates are more than an order of magnitude higher than usually estimated. Additionally, we provide zircon provenance and sedimentological data from 3D dinosaur fossils, which imply that their death and burial occurred in collapsed burrows, rather than via a catastrophic volcanogenic mechanism. In the studied area, the three principal fossil-rich intervals of the Yixian occur as a cyclic sequence that correspond to periods of high precipitation. Using Bayesian-Markov Chain Monte Carlo approaches, we constrain the total duration of the sequence to less than ~93,000 y and suggest that climatic precession paced the expression of these cyclic sediments. Rather than representing multiple, Pompeii-like catastrophes, the Yixian Formation is instead a brief snapshot of normal life and death in an Early Cretaceous continental community.

We show that the Late Triassic-Early Jurassic continental Arctic experienced wintertime freezing conditions, despite the exceptionally high atmospheric CO2 levels, by quantifying common lake ice-rafted debris (L-IRD) identified in the Junggar Basin of Xinjian, NW China. This L-IRD consists of outsized (0.112 mm) lithic clasts 'floating' in otherwise fine-grained, profundal lake sediment matrix. Laser-diffraction grain-size analysis demonstrates that the grain-size distribution for lacustrine strata of Junggar Basin is very similar to modern sediments from the seasonally ice-covered Sea of Okhotsk, reflecting a similar depositional mechanism. Three-dimensional computed tomography and two-dimensional thin sections demonstrate that the outsized clasts are dispersed, rather than confined to sand lenses or layers. These results are inconsistent with alternative methods of bimodal sediment deposition such as mud flows, algae rafting or root rafting. The discovery of Triassic-Jurassic continental freezing provides new context for understanding global climate during periods with high-CO2 conditions and climate and biotic changes in the Mesozoic Era.

The vast, widely exposed terrestrial (lacustrine to fluvial) Upper Triassic-Jurassic (except Tithonian) successions of the Junggar Basin not only record most of the stratigraphic boundaries of the Upper Triassic and Jurassic, including the Triassic-Jurassic boundary and the Hettangian-Sinemurian, Sinemurian-Pliensbachian, Pliensbachian-Toarcian, Lower-Middle Jurassic, Middle-Upper Jurassic and Oxfordian-Kimmeridgian boundaries, but also record a range of geological, organic, palaeogeographic and palaeoclimatic events known to have happened globally in the Late Triassic and Jurassic. The Triassic-Jurassic boundary is placed in the stratigraphic interval of the first occurrence of Retitriletes austroclavatidites and Callialasporites dampieri and the last occurrence of Lunatisporites rhaeticus. The end-Triassic mass extinction is characterized by the disappearance of most of the sporomorph and macro-plant taxa. The end-Triassic mass extinction occurred before the first occurrence of the sporomorph Cerebropollenites thiergartii, and ended after its appearance when life began to revive. The Junggar Basin was situated at a high latitude during the Late Triassic-Early Jurassic Pliensbachian 'hothouse' and 'greenhouse' periods. The Late Triassic-Mid Jurassic Bajocian was humid and warm, and rich in coal swamps, except the Toarcian, which yields little coal because it was relatively warmer and drier. It became arid from the early Late Jurassic Oxfordian.

A distinct coal break occurs widely in the late Early Jurassic in Central Asia, the cause of which, however, is still debated largely due to the uncertainty of its age constraint. In the Junggar Basin of northwestern China, this coal break coincides with the Sangonghe Formation, which is well exposed along the basin margins, and is mainly composed of lacustrine deposits rich in a variety of fossils, including plants, pollens and spores, bivalves, clam shrimps, insects and some vertebrates. Here we name them as the Sangonghe biota and review their biostratigraphic framework. The Sangonghe biota constrains the Sangonghe Formation to the late Pliensbachian to the early Aalenian. Abundant thermophilous plants and Classopollis, together with frequent occurrences of red beds and carbonate nodules in the middle part of the Sangonghe Formation, are indicative of an arid climate in Central Asia at that time. This arid interlude should be responsible for the coal break, which may be related to the global warming in the early Toarcian. However, more precise dating evidence is needed to substantiate this.

The Cenozoic era is an important period marked by significant changes in various Earth's spheres (lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere), which include the break-up of the Gondwana Supercontinent, the opening and closure of oceanic straits, the reorganization of atmospheric circulation, the climate transition from greenhouse to icehouse, and the rapid evolution of animals and plants. Therefore, it is a key geological period for studying the coupling between the different Earth's spheres. This review takes the Tethyan Seaway as an example to explain the timing and process of the closure of the Tethyan Seaway and its main impact and feedback on the biosphere, ocean circulation, and atmosphere from the perspective of Earth System Science. Based on multidisciplinary research into different tectonic domains of the Iranian Plateau, we reveal that the closure of the Tethyan Seaway, which separates the Arabian and Eurasian Plates, has undergone a stepwise evolution. From the Oligocene to the early Miocene (34-19 Ma), the Tethyan Seaway was well connected with the Indian Ocean, the proto-Mediterranean, and the Atlantic, indicated by the mutual high commonality of marine gastropods between them. During the late early Miocene (19-17 Ma), when the Tethyan Strait was partially open, both the Nd isotopes of seawater and the commonality of marine gastropods demonstrate that the passage capacity of seawater decreased by 90%. During the Mid-Miocene Climate Optimum (MMCO) (17-15 Ma), despite rising sea levels caused by global marine transgression, the increased temperature during the MMCO enhanced seawater evaporation, resulting in an environment dominated by coastal lagoons and only occasionally replaced by shallow seas. During the Middle Miocene Climatic Transition (MMCT) (15-12.8 Ma), the Tethyan Seaway evolved into a continental environment but interrupted by short-term periodic marine transgressions, which had a quasi-period of 100-ka between 15 and 12.8 Ma. Such a cycle is likely to be related to periodic ice sheet expansion/melting and thus to the sea-level fluctuations caused by changes in solar radiation driven by the Earth's orbital eccentricity. After 12.8 Ma (the end of the MMCT), the Tethyan Seaway was permanently closed. The gradual closure of the Tethyan Seaway has had a significant impact on the biosphere. Marine invertebrates of gastropod and echinoderm tended to migrate from the proto-Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific in response to that gradual closure. For mammals, although there were sporadic migrations between Africa-Arabia and Eurasia in the early Miocene, the large-scale two-way migrations of mammals mainly occurred after 18-17 Ma, because the Tethyan Seaway was dominated by coastal lagoons, which were no longer geographical barrier for mammals. Proboscises, hyraxes and tubelodons in Africa migrated to Eurasia, whereas Eurasian carnivores, rhinoceros, clawed mammals, pigs, ruminants, lagomorphs and some rodents migrated to Africa. The closure of the Tethyan Seaway also had an important impact on ocean circulation, which reduced the injection of warm, salty water from the low-latitude Neotethys Sea into the Atlantic and the southern Indian Ocean, and thereby reduced, to some extent, the meridional heat transfer from low latitudes to the high-latitudes in the southern hemisphere resulting in the expansion of the East Antarctic ice sheet and the cooling of Antarctica. The retreat of the Neotethys Sea and the permanent closure of the Tethyan Seaway at similar to 13 Ma also profoundly affected atmospheric circulations, manifested by the strengthening of the upwelling of cold seawater along the Arabian coast and the much enhanced Southwest South Asian summer monsoon.

Amber deposits provide a rare opportunity to look into the details of terrestrial ecosystems. This study reviews six well-documented Chinese amber deposits from the Mesozoic to Cenozoic, and reviews Cretaceous amber deposits globally. The discovery of in situ ambers from the Yimin and Zhalainuoer coal fields in the Hailar Basin extends the geographic distribution of Chinese amber outcrops into northeast China. Stratigraphic correlation and U–Pb geochronology indicate that the Hailar ambers formed in the Early Cretaceous and thus represent the oldest-known amber in China, a unique window into the paleoenvironments of the Cretaceous world. Further investigations into the amber-bearing Yimin Formation will advance understanding of Cretaceous biotas, local ecosystems, global environmental change, and the link between biology and climate.

Abstract The Junggar Basin, NW China, hosts continuous and well-exposed Late Triassic and Jurassic continental strata. Extensive coal, oil and gas deposits occur within the basin and, together with the high-palaeolatitude locality and continental records of several Mesozoic geological events, make the sedimentary successions globally important. This special publication focuses on these successions, presenting recent advances in palaeontology, geology and palaeoenvironments. The contents span various topics, including studies of fauna, flora, stratigraphy, geochemistry, palaeogeography, palaeoclimate, petroleum reservoir quality, the end-Triassic mass extinction, the Toarcian Oceanic Anoxic Event, Triassic–Jurassic seasonal freezing and true polar wander. To provide continuity throughout the various papers, where possible, bed numbers for all stratigraphic units are provided, enabling findings to be compared among studies and tested in the future. This special publication highlights that the sediments of the Junggar Basin provide important long-term records of continental life and environmental changes through the Triassic and Jurassic.

Inner Asia underwent dramatic changes in sea-land distributions and paleoenvironment in the Cenozoic that were marked by the westward retreat and finally demise of the proto-Paratethys and the subsequent formation of the largest mid-latitude dryland in Central Asia in the Northern Hemisphere. The proto-Paratethys has now retreated to the present-day Mediterranean, but this huge epicontinental sea once extended eastward to the remote Tarim Basin in Central Asia. Although the Tarim and Tajik Basins are today separated by the Pamir salient, they were once the same basin occupied by sea water that belonged to the easternmost part of the Turan Sea in the early Cenozoic. The present Alay Valley that is situated between the Pamirs and Tian Shan was formerly the seawater channel that connected the Tarim and Tajik Basins; since the late Eocene the Valley has experienced a major change in altitude from sea level to 3500 m. The timing and detailed process of the final seawater retreat in the Alay Valley have considerable importance for understanding the interplay between tectonics, surface process, and climate. However, there is still much controversy about the timing of the final seawater retreat from the Tarim and Tajik Basins. In this paper we present a multidisciplinary study of Upper Paleogene strata in the easternmost Alay Valley. Our new magnetostratigraphy, together with the biostratigraphy and the U-Pb age of detrital zircons, indicates that the Upper Paleogene strata have an age range of 40 to 28 Ma. A shallow open sea ended at 40 Ma in both the Tarim and Tajik Basins just after the termination of the Middle Eocene Climatic Optimum. The change from a shallow open sea to an alternative deposition of restricted marine and continental facies began at 40 Ma. Nine marine transgression/regression cycles were recorded in the Alay Valley as indicated by the alternations between restricted marine environment (lagoon) and terrestrial deposition from 39.1 to 37.8 Ma. During this period, the Alay Valley was intermittently occupied by seawater. The final seawater retreat from the Alay Valley was at 37.8 Ma. There might be a diachronous final seawater retreat from the restricted marine environment in the Alay Valley and the Tajik Basin, it was mostly related to the sedimentary hiatuses and/or to the differential uplift and basin filling processes driven by the outward growth of the Pamirs.

The timing of tectonic deformation in the Zagros foreland basin provides important information about the tectonic propagation process driven by the Arabia‐Eurasia convergence. The chronology of growth strata is one of the most important methods to delimit the history of folding and thrusting within the foreland basin. In this study, we report integrated analyses of sedimentology, magnetostratigraphy, and biostratigraphy of Miocene strata in the Dezful Embayment in the SW Zagros foreland basin. The new results indicate that deposition of the northern limb of the Gach‐e Moh Anticline was between 14.6 and 8.6 Ma; that includes the Upper Gachsaran Formation (14.6–13.8 Ma), the Mishan Formation (13.8–12.8 Ma), and the Agha Jari Formation (12.8–8.6 Ma). Based on magnetostratigraphic and sedimentary evidence, the transition from marine to non‐marine was at ∼12.8 Ma. Analysis of temporal lithofacies‐stacked patterns shows there were seventeen transgression‐regression cycles during the Middle Miocene Climatic Transition with a ∼100‐Kyr Earth eccentricity cycle, suggesting that the cyclic marine transgressions and regressions were mainly driven by eustatic sea level fluctuations; but tectonic‐induced basin subsidence also contributed marine transgressions in the Upper Mishan Formation. The final seawater retreat was at 12.8 Ma driven by both the global eustatic sea level drop and the enhanced south‐westward progradation of sediments eroded from the High Zagros. The base of the growth strata in the footwall of the Mountain Front Fault was at ∼11 Ma, suggesting that tectonic deformation caused by the Arabia‐Eurasia collision had propagated to the Dezful Embayment by that time.