Little is known about the development of the modern oceanic climate regime of northwest Europe in deep time. During the Neogene (23.03-2.588 Ma), the British Isles had a unique location on the northwest edge of the Eurasian continent forming a peninsula separating the Atlantic Ocean from the North Sea (Harzhauser & Piller, 2007). Neogene sediments of the UK are therefore ideal for understanding the development of Neogene oceanic climates.The modern European climate experiences a prevalence of the westerlies in winter with summer climates being highly latitudinally diverse. Western coastal areas, such as the UK, experience an oceanic, or maritime, climate with highly latitudinally diverse summer climates relative to southern Europe with its Mediterranean climate and dry summers and the subhumid-semi-arid continental climate of eastern Europe (Rohli & Vega, 2008;Vines, 1985). However, during the late Middle Miocene (Serravallian, 13.82-11.62 Ma) summer precipitation patterns suggest Europe was instead dominated by a trade wind system flowing from the northeast to southwest, whilst the Late Miocene was controlled by the westerlies (Böhme, 2004;Quan et al., 2014). However, much of this work is based upon the central European basins and does not, potentially, reflect terrestrial environments with a strong oceanic control. In addition, the majority of terrestrial paleoclimate reconstructions are generated through the Co-existence Approach (Burls et al., 2021;Utescher et al., 2014). Whilst this has given us unprecedented understanding of terrestrial climate development (e.g., Utescher et al., 2017), the reconstruction of a Abstract Neogene sediments in the UK are ideally situated for understanding the early development of hydrological dynamics and atmospheric circulation that led to the modern oceanic climate of northwest Europe. Onshore Neogene fossiliferous deposits in the UK are limited to the solution pipe fills at Trwyn y Parc in Anglesey (Middle Miocene), the Brassington Formation of Derbyshire (Serravallian-Tortonian), and the Coralline Crag Formation (latest Zanclean-earliest Piacenzian) and Red Crag Formation (Piacenzian-Gelasian) in southeast England. Palynoflora from these localities can be used to provide snapshots into the climate at the time of deposition, however, palaeobotanical-based reconstructions are typically lacking in their poor estimation of error. Therefore, we present the first pre-Quaternary application of two terrestrial climate reconstruction techniques: CREST (Climate Reconstruction SofTware) and CRACLE (Climate Reconstruction Analysis using Coexistence Likelihood Estimation), that use Bayesian and likelihood estimation probability respectively to generate a new palaeoclimate reconstruction, and compare this to Co-existence Approach reconstructions from the UK and continental Europe. Our study shows how Mean Annual Temperature (MAT) declines by 3°-6°C, Mean Annual Precipitation (MAP) declines by 480-600 mm and Precipitation Seasonality approximately halves throughout the Neogene. CREST and ...

Various sulfate minerals exist on Mars; except for gypsum, they are understudied on Earth. Extremophiles have been documented in modern gypsum and halite and ancient halite, but other chemical sediments have not been evaluated for biosignatures. Here, we present the first observations and analysis of microorganisms and organic compounds in primary fluid inclusions in the Mars-analog mineral mirabilite, Na2SO4∙10H2O, from Great Salt Lake, Utah, USA. Microscopy by transmitted light and ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis) light, and Raman spectroscopy, show abundant bacteria and/or Archaea, algae, fungi, diatoms, protozoa, and organic compounds such as beta-carotene. This discovery expands our current knowledge of biological materials trapped in salt and aids the search for life on Mars, both for sample selection by rover and for analyses of return samples on Earth.

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The middle Miocene Climate Optimum (MMCO) was the warmest interval of the last 23 million years and is one of the best analogs for proposed future climate change scenarios. Fungi play a key role in the terrestrial carbon cycle as dominant decomposers of plant debris, and through their interactions with plants and other organisms as symbionts, parasites, and endobionts. Thus, their study in the fossil record, especially during the MMCO, is essential to better understand biodiversity changes and terrestrial carbon cycle dynamics in past analogous environments, as well as to model future ecological and climatic scenarios. The fossil record also offers a unique long-term, large-scale dataset to evaluate fungal assemblage dynamics across long temporal and spatial scales, providing a better understanding of how ecological factors influenced assemblage development through time. In this study, we assessed the fungal diversity and community composition recorded in two geological sections from the middle Miocene from the coal mines of Thailand and Slovakia. We used presence-absence data to quantify the fungal diversity of each locality. Spores and other fungal remains were identified to modern taxa whenever possible; laboratory codes and fossil names were used when this correlation was not possible. This study represents the first of its kind for Thailand, and it expands existing work from Slovakia. Our results indicate a total of 281 morphotaxa. This work will allow us to use modern ecological data to make inferences about ecosystem characteristics and community dynamics for the studied regions. It opens new horizons for the study of past fungal diversity based on modern fungal ecological analyses. It also sheds light on how global variations in fungal species richness and community composition were affected by different climatic conditions and under rapid increases of temperature in the past to make inferences for the near climatic future.

Evaporites characterize the Lopingian of Europe but present obstacles for biostratigraphic analysis. Here we present a case study for processing the Lopingian Zechstein Group evaporites of central-western Europe for the recovery of palynomorph assemblages. We demonstrate that full recovery is easily achieved with two main modes of palynomorph preservation observed; palynomorphs are either exceptionally well-preserved and orange-brown in colour, or poorly-preserved, brown-black, opaque and fragmented. The latter are reminiscent of palynomorphs of high thermal maturity. However, we propose that the intact nature of preservation is a result of the rapid growth of near-surface halite crystals, with their darkening a consequence of locally-enhanced heat flux due to the relatively high thermal conductivity of salt. This case study has enabled novel insight into an otherwise undescribed environment, and demonstrates the utility and possibility of extracting palynomorphs from a variety of rock salt types. This method should be applicable to a wide range of ancient evaporite and could also be applied to other Permian evaporite systems, which are used as analogues for extra-terrestrial environments.

Palynological study of the Permian–Triassic boundary has typically focused on the pollen grain and spore content to reconstruct vegetation, with fungal remains either left unidentified or set aside for future research. Paleozoic fungal microfossil records in particular are lacking. The Zechstein Group (∼ 258–252 Ma; Lopingian) is a remarkable stratigraphic sequence of stacked carbonates and evaporites. High-resolution palynological analysis of new borehole cores through the Zechstein Group of northeast England has revealed its entire sedimentological history and enabled a new reconstruction of vegetation dynamics in central-western Europe preceding the Permian–Triassic boundary. Assemblages composed of conifers, pteridosperms, pteridophytes, sphenopsids, and cycads/ginkgoes were recovered alongside fungal remains throughout the entire sequence. Four fungal morphologies were observed, the most common being smooth-walled spheroidal inclusions of an endobiotic Chytridiomycota or Hypochytridiomycota affinity. Other evidence of fungi includes epiphytic Callimothallus-type fungi (Family Microthyraceae), the dematiaceous Chaetomium-like mold (Family Chaetomiaceae) found associated with soil, cellulose and plant debris, and possible evidence of chytrid-induced pitting on the surface of plant cuticle. This is the first study to highlight the fungal content of Zechstein palynological preparations and while occurrences are rare, they provide new insight into the composition of the Zechstein forest understory, reinforcing the interpretation that the upper Zechstein environment was humid. This work improves our understanding of the taxonomic and functional diversity of fungal taxa associated with evaporite systems during the Lopingian, and highlights the exceptional preservation potential of halite, combating underestimates of fungal richness in the fossil record.