Palynoflora and palaeoenvironment of the early Miocene palaeolake from the Bełchatów mine, central Poland

Abstract

The Be³chatów lig nite de pos its are a rich ar chive al low ing palaeoenvironmental, palaeo eco logi cal and palaeoclimatic re construc tions from the Neo gene and Qua ter nary pe ri ods. We de scribe the re sults of palynological stud ies (in clud ing non-pol len palynomorphs) of eight sam ples from the lower Mio cene KRAM-P 211/214 col lec tion of plant macroremains. The re sults of this palynological anal y sis are con sis tent with the re sults of pre vi ous stud ies of plant macroremains and sig nif i cantly en rich our knowl edge of veg e ta tion and palaeoenvironment. Both stud ies in di cate the pres ence of a fresh wa ter body (a mod er ately large and deep lake) sur rounded by wet land veg e ta tion (in clud ing swamp for ests with Glyptostrobus, Taxodium, Nyssa and Osmunda) and up land mesophytic for ests. Ev er green or at least semi-ev er green for est com mu ni ties grew along the an cient shores of the lake and on the slopes of the Me so zoic calcareus rocks sur round ing the lake. In the lake, green al gae (Pediastrum, Tetraedron and some Botryococcus) and fresh wa ter peridinoid dinoflagellates were ma jor com po nents of the al gal com mu nity. The same lake was the source of pre vi ously iden ti fied an i mal re mains: fresh wa ter fishes, molluscs, and mam mals, in clud ing Megachiroptera bats. Our anal y sis shows that the cli mate was sub trop i cal and hu mid, with an es ti mated mean an nual tem per a ture of 16.8-17.8°C.