A δ13CORG STACK AND CLAY MINERALOGICAL PROXY RECORD OF CLIMATE CHANGE THROUGH THE LATE JURASSIC–EARLY CRETACEOUS OF NORTH-WESTERN EUROPE: AN INTEGRATED INTER-REGIONAL CORRELATION

Peatlands are fascinating wetland ecosystems. They provide a habitat for a wide range of highly adapted plant and animal species. In addition to the floristic and ornithological richness, peatlands have been recognized for many other values. For instance, drained peatland soils often have good agricultural properties, and peat has been and still is in some places extensively used as fuel. In coastal wetlands peat has even been used for salt extraction. Furthermore, peat is an interesting material for science, as it contains information on the palaeoecological environment, climate change, carbon history, and archaeology. In north-western Europe, peatlands were once quite extensive, covering tens of thousands of square kilometres. However, most of them have been strongly exploited by humans during past centuries. Many peatlands have been cultivated for agriculture and forestry, or have been exploited by commercial or domestic peat extraction for fuel. As a result, only a very small part of north-western Europe’s peatlands remains today in a more or less natural state. This chapter focuses on the peat deposits and peatlands in north-western Europe that have formed since the Late Glacial (c.13 ka BP). First, the most common concepts in peatland terminology are explained, and the distribution of peatlands is described. Next, processes of peat formation and the relationship between peatforming processes and climate, hydrology, vegetation, and other factors are discussed. In the following section, frequently used classification methods are presented. A historical overview of the cultivation and exploitation of peatlands is given and the present land use and characteristics of peatland soils are discussed. The following section deals with methods of conservation and rehabilitation of the remaining mires. The importance of peatlands as palaeoecological archives is examplified. Finally, the role of peatlands as a source and/or sink of CO2 and the relations with climate change are briefly explained. Peat is the unconsolidated material that predominantly consists of slightly decomposed or undecomposed organic material in which the original cellular and tissue structures can often be identified. Peat forms in lakes and mires under waterlogged, anaerobic conditions.

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A turiasaurian sauropod dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous Wealden Supergroup of the United Kingdom

PeerJ ◽

10.7717/peerj.6348 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 7 ◽

pp. e6348

Author(s):

Philip D. Mannion

Keyword(s):

Early Cretaceous ◽

Middle Jurassic ◽

Late Jurassic ◽

Western Europe ◽

Phylogenetic Analyses ◽

Neural Spine ◽

Faunal Turnover ◽

The United Kingdom ◽

The Usa ◽

The Uk

The Jurassic/Cretaceous (J/K) boundary, 145 million years ago, has long been recognised as an extinction event or faunal turnover for sauropod dinosaurs, with many ‘basal’ lineages disappearing. However, recently, a number of ‘extinct’ groups have been recognised in the Early Cretaceous, including diplodocids in Gondwana, and non-titanosauriform macronarians in Laurasia. Turiasauria, a clade of non-neosauropod eusauropods, was originally thought to have been restricted to the Late Jurassic of western Europe. However, its distribution has recently been extended to the Late Jurassic of Tanzania (Tendaguria tanzaniensis), as well as to the Early Cretaceous of the USA (Mierasaurus bobyoungi and Moabosaurus utahensis), demonstrating the survival of another ‘basal’ clade across the J/K boundary. Teeth from the Middle Jurassic–Early Cretaceous of western Europe and North Africa have also tentatively been attributed to turiasaurs, whilst recent phylogenetic analyses recovered Late Jurassic taxa from Argentina and China as further members of Turiasauria. Here, an anterior dorsal centrum and neural arch (both NHMUK 1871) from the Early Cretaceous Wealden Supergroup of the UK are described for the first time. NHMUK 1871 shares several synapomorphies with Turiasauria, especially the turiasaurs Moabosaurus and Tendaguria, including: (1) a strongly dorsoventrally compressed centrum; (2) the retention of prominent epipophyses; and (3) an extremely low, non-bifid neural spine. NHMUK 1871 therefore represents the first postcranial evidence for Turiasauria from European deposits of Early Cretaceous age. Although turiasaurs show clear heterodont dentition, only broad, characteristically ‘heart’-shaped teeth can currently be attributed to Turiasauria with confidence. As such, several putative turiasaur occurrences based on isolated teeth from Europe, as well as the Middle Jurassic and Early Cretaceous of Africa, cannot be confidently referred to Turiasauria. Unequivocal evidence for turiasaurs is therefore restricted to the late Middle Jurassic–Early Cretaceous of western Europe, the Late Jurassic of Tanzania, and the late Early Cretaceous of the USA, although remains from elsewhere might ultimately demonstrate that the group had a near-global distribution.

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Evolutionary relationships of atoposaurid crocodyliforms and evidence for allopatric speciation driving their high diversity in the late jurassic of europe

10.14293/p2199-8442.1.sop-life.parqhi.v1 ◽

2015 ◽

Author(s):

Jon Tennant ◽

Philip D. Mannion

Keyword(s):

Early Cretaceous ◽

Late Jurassic ◽

Western Europe ◽

Small Body ◽

Terrestrial Ecosystems ◽

Distinct Species ◽

Species Level ◽

Allopatric Speciation ◽

Sea Levels ◽

High Diversity

Atoposaurid crocodylomorphs represent an important faunal component of Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous Laurasian semi-aquatic to terrestrial ecosystems. Despite being consistently recovered at the base of Neosuchia, the major crocodylomorph lineage leading to extant crocodilians, their species-level taxonomy and inter-relationships remain poorly understood. We present a systematic taxonomic review of the group, noting numerous anatomical differences between specimens from geographically discrete localities in the Late Jurassic of western Europe. In particular, we recognise a new species of Alligatorellus from Germany, previously referred to the contemporaneous French taxon Alligatorellus beaumonti, and synonymise the sympatric Alligatorium paintenense with Alligatorium franconicum. A comprehensive species-level phylogenetic analysis of unambiguous atoposaurids (15 OTUs and 450 characters) recovers a clade comprising Alligatorellus, Alligatorium, Atoposaurus, and Montsecosuchus.Theriosuchus is shown to represent a monophyletic, diverse, and long-lived genus that forms the sister taxon to this clade of atoposaurids. The poorly known Theriosuchus grandinaris, from the Early Cretaceous of Thailand, is excluded from this grouping and is instead positioned at the base of Atoposauridae, although this likely reflects its incomplete nature. Incorporation of putative atoposaurids, such as Karatausuchus from the Late Jurassic of Kazakhstan, will be crucial in clarifying these relationships. Our revision of atoposaurids leads us to recognise the existence of three sympatric genera in the Late Jurassic of western Europe, with a distinct species of Alligatorellus, Alligatorium, and Atoposaurus present in both French and German basins. This high diversity of closely related species might have been caused by allopatric speciation, driven by fluctuating highstand sea-levels during an interval when western Europe formed an island archipelago system. It is possible that the small body size of atoposaurids resulted from island dwarfing during this interval, but testing of this idea will have to await the discovery of more basal forms from non-island settings.

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Hydrological response to climate change in the Lesse and the Vesdre catchments: contribution of a physically based model (Wallonia, Belgium)

Hydrology and Earth System Sciences ◽

10.5194/hess-15-1745-2011 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 15 (6) ◽

pp. 1745-1756 ◽

Cited By ~ 21

Author(s):

A. Bauwens ◽

C. Sohier ◽

A. Degré

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Return Period ◽

Western Europe ◽

Distributed Model ◽

Severe Drought ◽

Physically Based Model ◽

Physically Based ◽

The Mean ◽

Projected Changes ◽

North Western

Abstract. The Meuse is an important rain-fed river in North-Western Europe. Nine million people live in its catchment, split over five countries. Projected changes in precipitation and temperature characteristics due to climate change would have a significant impact on the Meuse River and its tributaries. In this study, we focused on the impacts of climate change on the hydrology of two sub-catchments of the Meuse in Belgium, the Lesse and the Vesdre, placing the emphasis on the water-soil-plant continuum in order to highlight the effects of climate change on plant growth, and water uptake on the hydrology of two sub-catchments. These effects were studied using two climate scenarios and a physically based distributed model, which reflects the water-soil-plant continuum. Our results show that the vegetation will evapotranspirate between 10 and 17 % less at the end of the century because of water scarcity in summer, even if the root development is better under climate change conditions. In the low scenario, the mean minimal 7 days discharge value could decrease between 19 and 24 % for a two year return period, and between 20 and 35 % for a fifty year return period. It will lead to rare but severe drought in rivers, with potentially huge consequences on water quality.

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Climate change, weather shocks, and price convergence in pre-industrial Germany

European Review of Economic History ◽

10.1093/ereh/heaa030 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Hakon Albers ◽

Ulrich Pfister

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Seventeenth Century ◽

Population Growth ◽

Market Integration ◽

Western Europe ◽

Price Convergence ◽

High Quality ◽

Weather Shocks ◽

River Transport ◽

North Western

Abstract Market integration of European inland regions such as Germany caught up on North-Western Europe from the seventeenth century onwards. As many studies rely on grain prices and the pre-industrial era was a period of climate change, a relevant question is in how far changing weather shocks impact on the measurement of convergence trends. We create a new high-quality grain price dataset and apply four methodologies to quantify market integration robust to weather shocks and climate change. Population growth and river transport turn out as plausible explanations for price convergence rather than climate change.

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Late Jurassic–Early Cretaceous climate change record in clay minerals of the Norwegian-Greenland Seaway

Palaeogeography Palaeoclimatology Palaeoecology ◽

10.1016/j.palaeo.2019.109331 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 534 ◽

pp. 109331 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Holly E. Turner ◽

Jennifer M. Huggett

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Clay Minerals ◽

Early Cretaceous ◽

Late Jurassic

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The Hydrological response to climate change of the Lesse and the Vesdre catchments (Wallonia, Belgium)

Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Discussions ◽

10.5194/hessd-7-7695-2010 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 7 (5) ◽

pp. 7695-7724

Author(s):

A. Bauwens ◽

C. Sohier ◽

A. Degré

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

River Discharge ◽

Western Europe ◽

Water Shortage ◽

Distributed Model ◽

Hydrological Response ◽

Physically Based ◽

High Flows ◽

Projected Changes ◽

North Western

Abstract. The Meuse is an important rain-fed river in North-Western Europe. Nine millions of people live in its catchment splited over five countries. Projected changes in precipitation and temperature characteristics due to climate change would have significant impact on the Meuse River and its tributaries. In this study, we focus on two tributaries of the Meuse in Belgium the Lesse and the Vesdre catchments. The physically based, distributed model EPICGrid, a model which reflects water-soil-plant continuum, is driven by four sets of meteorological information. Two time slices (2020–2050 and 2070–2100) and two scenarios (wet and dry) were studied. The meteorological scenarios are produced by the CCI-HYDR Perturbation Tool, a tool specially designed for the Belgian climate and taking into account a broad range of models. Water balance, high-flows and low-flows are calculated. It highlights that towards the end of the century, plants may suffer from water shortage and excess. This may lead to a decrease in evapotranspiration and clear changes in water balances. The seasoning contrast in river discharge may be strongly accentuated.

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