​The next UCD School of Earth Sciences seminar will take place online. Dr Eudald Mujal Grané from the Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart (SMNS, Germany) will be presenting a talk on 'Tomorrow Never Dies: An ichnological perspective of the terrestrial Triassic faunal recovery'.

Abstract:

The beginning of the Mesozoic era is featured by the recovery of ecosystems in the aftermath of the end-Permian mass extinction, the most severe biotic crisis of Earth history. The Triassic world witnessed the origin of the so-called modern faunas. Due to the paucity of good and a complete fossil (and geological) record, many uncertainties on life recovery still exist, especially in the terrestrial ecosystems. This is utterly the case of the Catalan Pyrenean record, which has been historically underestimated despite its interesting palaeogeographic location at equatorial Pangaea. Nevertheless, since a few years ago, fruitful prospecting in the terrestrial Buntsandstein successions result in the discovery of abundant fossils, mostly corresponding to tetrapod ichnites, but also sparse bones, invertebrate trace fossils and fragmentary plant remains. So far, data show a predominance of archosauromorphs in alluvial ecosystems. Going further into the Triassic, palaeontological data from the lacustrine-coastal deposits of the Lower Keuper from southern Germany show the persistence of archosauromorphs and derived forms, though amphibians are conspicuously abundant, noting a bias between osteological and ichnological records. In addition, odd fossil occurrences show how life manages to survive at the dawn of a new era.