美国科尔比学院地质系Robert A. Gastaldo团队探讨了杜内阶植物的命运。相关论文于2024年7月23日发表在《地质学》杂志上。

据研究人员介绍，杜内阶时期湖泊沉积物的破坏，以及它们的整体坍塌进入加拿大蒙克顿次盆地的内陆裂谷盆地湖泊，导致稀有的、几乎完整的三维保存的非木质树木被引入。

研究人员称，这些来自阿尔伯特形成层的独特化石是同时期地震活动的结果。同沉积构造包括一系列软沉积变形特征和一个横切沙场沸腾，表明多次>4.6Mw的地震冲击。这一受构造控制的事件埋葬了树木，它们的新生长形式在进化和生态上都是过渡性的。与其他古生代植物不同，这是古植物学记录中的一次性事件。

附：英文原文

Title: To rush into the secret house of death: The fate of a Tournaisian plant

Author: Robert A. Gastaldo, Patricia G. Gensel, Ian J. Glasspool, Steven J. Hinds, Olivia A. King, Adrian F. Park, Matthew R. Stimson

Issue&Volume: 2024-07-23

Abstract: Tournaisian-age failure of marginal lacustrine sediments, and their bulk collapse into an inland rift-basin lake in the Moncton Subbasin, Canada, led to the entrainment of rare, almost complete, three-dimensionally preserved non-woody trees. Preservation of these unique fossils from the Albert Formation was a consequence of contemporaneous seismicity. Synsedimentary structures include an array of soft-sediment deformational features and a field of cross-cutting sand boils indicating multiple seismic shocks >4.6 Mw. This tectonically controlled event, entombing trees whose novel growth form is both evolutionarily and ecologically transitionary and unlike other Paleozoic plants, is a one-off in the paleobotanical record.

DOI: 10.1130/G52348.1

Source: https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/article/doi/10.1130/G52348.1/645777/To-rush-into-the-secret-house-of-death-The-fate-of