ALBERT

Description: The extensive Cretaceous sedimentary sequence exposed within the James Ross Basin, Antarctica, is critical for regional stratigraphic correlations in the Southern Hemisphere, and also for our understanding of the radiation and extinction of a range of taxonomic groups. However, the nature and definition of Cenomanian-Turonian strata on the NW margins of James Ross Island has previously been difficult, due both to marked lateral facies changes and to stratigraphical discontinuities within the extensive Whisky Bay Formation. Facies variation and local unconformities were the result of fault-controlled deep-marine sedimentation along the basin margin. In this study the Albian-Cenomanian boundary is defined for the first time in the upper levels of the Lewis Hill Member of the Whisky Bay Formation. However, there is a Cenomanian-late Turonian unconformity between the Lewis HIll and Brandy Bay members of the Whisky Bay Formation. Equivalent lithostratigraphical units exposed further to the SW on James Ross Island appear to be more complete with the early Cenomanian-late Turonian interval represented by the upper parts of the Tumbledown Cliffs and the lower part of the Rum Cove members of the Whisky Bay Formation. The Turonian-Coniacian boundary is provisionally placed at the junction between the Whisky Bay and Hidden Lake formations. The revised stratigraphic ages for this section show that the Late Cretaceous radiations of a number of major plant and animal groups can be traced back to at least the Turonian stage. This raises the possibility that their dissemination might be linked to the global Cretaceous thermal maximum.

Description: Since the publication of two literature compilations in 2012 and 2013, 89 further contributions on Triassic, Jurassic and earliest Cretaceous (Berriasian) dinoflagellate cysts have been discovered or were issued recently (i.e. between April 2013 and March 2014). These studies are mostly on the Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous of Europe. They are all listed herein with digital object identifier (doi) numbers where applicable, and a description of each item as a string of keywords. The 15 most significant publications are briefly summarised.

Description: The Brassington Formation is the most extensive Miocene sedimentary succession onshore in the UK. Because of its unique position at the margin of NW Europe, the pollen from this lithostratigraphical unit provides evidence on the development of vegetation affected by North Atlantic currents and hypothesized atmospheric circulation changes during the Middle to Late Miocene climate cooling. Palynostratigraphy suggests that the uppermost Kenslow Member of the Brassington Formation is not coeval. Previously, all occurrences of the Kenslow Member were assumed to be contemporary. The oldest pollen assemblage is from the more southern Bees Nest Pit, which represents a subtropical conifer-dominated forest of late Serravallian age ( c . 12 Ma). A younger assemblage was observed from the more northern Kenslow Top Pit; this indicates that a subtropical mixed forest was present during the early Tortonian (11.6–9 Ma). The shift from a conifer-dominated to a mixed forest was related to precipitation. Although the total precipitation did not change between the two assemblages, the younger assemblage had more uniform rainfall throughout the year. The diachronous nature of the Kenslow Member means that the depositional model of the Brassington Formation needs revising, and this will have implications for Neogene to recent uplift of the southern Pennines. Supplementary material: All valid formally defined palynomorph taxa below the generic level that are mentioned in this paper, with full author citations, are available at http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/SUP18889 .

Description: Pollen grains are complex three-dimensional structures, and are identified using specific distinctive morphological characteristics. An efficient automatic system for the accurate and rapid identification of pollen grains would significantly enhance the consistency, objectivity, speed and perhaps accuracy of pollen analysis. This study describes the development and testing of an expert system for the identification of pollen grains based on their respective morphologies. The extreme learning machine (ELM) is a type of artificial neural network, and has been used for automatic pollen identification. To test the equipment and the method, pollen grains from 10 species of Onopordum (a thistle genus) from Turkey were used. In total, 30 different images were acquired for each of the 10 species studied. The images were then used to measure 11 morphological parameters; these were the colpus length, the colpus width, the equatorial axis (E), the polar axis (P), the P/E ratio, the columellae length, the echinae length, and the thicknesses of the exine, intine, nexine and tectum. Pollen recognition was performed using the ELM for the 50–50%, 70–30% and 80–20% training-test partitions of the overall dataset. The classification accuracies of these three training-test partitions of were 84.67%, 91.11% and 95.00%, respectively. Therefore, the ELM exhibited a very high success rate for identifying the pollen types considered here. The use of computer-based systems for pollen recognition has great potential in all areas of palynology for the accurate and rapid accumulation of data.

Description: Occasionally (and fortunately), circumstances and timing combine to allow an individual, almost singlehandedly, to generate a paradigm shift in his or her chosen field of inquiry. William R. (‘Bill’) Evitt (1923–2009 ) was such a person. During his career as a palaeontologist, Bill Evitt made lasting and profound contributions to the study of both dinoflagellates and trilobites. He had a distinguished, long and varied career, researching first trilobites and techniques in palaeontology before moving on to marine palynomorphs. Bill is undoubtedly best known for his work on dinoflagellates, especially their resting cysts. He worked at three major US universities and spent a highly significant period in the oil industry. Bill’s early profound interest in the natural sciences was actively encouraged both by his parents and at school. His alma mater was Johns Hopkins University where, commencing in 1940, he studied chemistry and geology as an undergraduate. He quickly developed a strong vocation in the earth sciences, and became fascinated by the fossiliferous Lower Palaeozoic strata of the northwestern United States. Bill commenced a PhD project on silicified Middle Ordovician trilobites from Virginia in 1943. His doctoral research was interrupted by military service during World War II; Bill served as an aerial photograph interpreter in China in 1944 and 1945, and received the Bronze Star for his excellent work. Upon demobilisation from the US Army Air Force, he resumed work on his PhD and was given significant teaching duties at Johns Hopkins, which he thoroughly enjoyed. He accepted his first professional position, as an instructor in sedimentary geology, at the University of Rochester in late 1948. Here Bill supervised his first two graduate students, and shared a great cameraderie with a highly motivated student body which largely comprised World War II veterans. At Rochester, Bill continued his trilobite research, and was the editor of the Journal of Paleontology between 1953 and 1956. Seeking a new challenge, he joined the Carter Oil Company in Tulsa, Oklahoma, during 1956. This brought about an irrevocable realignment of his research interests from trilobites to marine palynology. He undertook basic research on aquatic palynomorphs in a very well-resourced laboratory under the direction of one of his most influential mentors, William S. ‘Bill’ Hoffmeister. Bill Evitt visited the influential European palynologists Georges Deflandre and Alfred Eisenack during late 1959 and, while in Tulsa, first developed several groundbreaking hypotheses. He soon realised that the distinctive morphology of certain fossil dinoflagellates, notably the archaeopyle, meant that they represent the resting cyst stage of the life cycle. The archaeopyle clearly allows the excystment of the cell contents, and comprises one or more plate areas. Bill also concluded that spine-bearing palynomorphs, then called hystrichospheres, could be divided into two groups. The largely Palaeozoic spine-bearing palynomorphs are of uncertain biological affinity, and these were termed acritarchs. Moreover, he determined that unequivocal dinoflagellate cysts are all Mesozoic or younger, and that the fossil record of dinoflagellates is highly selective. Bill was always an academic at heart and he joined Stanford University in 1962, where he remained until retiring in 1988. Bill enjoyed getting back into teaching after his six years in industry. During his 26-year tenure at Stanford, Bill continued to revolutionise our understanding of dinoflagellate cysts. He produced many highly influential papers and two major textbooks. The highlights include defining the acritarchs and comprehensively documenting the archaeopyle, together with highly detailed work on the morphology of Nannoceratopsis and Palaeoperidinium pyrophorum using the scanning electron microscope. Bill supervised 11 graduate students while at Stanford University. He organised the Penrose Conference on Modern and Fossil Dinoflagellates in 1978, which was so successful that similar meetings have been held about every four years since that inaugural symposium. Bill also taught many short courses on dinoflagellate cysts aimed at the professional community. Unlike many eminent geologists, Bill actually retired from actively working in the earth sciences. His full retirement was in 1988; after this he worked on only a small number of dinoflagellate cyst projects, including an extensive paper on the genus Palaeoperidinium .

Description: The Brassington Formation is the most extensive Miocene sedimentary succession onshore in the UK. Because of its unique position at the margin of NW Europe, the pollen from this lithostratigraphical unit provides evidence on the development of vegetation affected by North Atlantic currents and hypothesized atmospheric circulation changes during the Middle to Late Miocene climate cooling. Palynostratigraphy suggests that the uppermost Kenslow Member of the Brassington Formation is not coeval. Previously, all occurrences of the Kenslow Member were assumed to be contemporary. The oldest pollen assemblage is from the more southern Bees Nest Pit, which represents a subtropical conifer-dominated forest of late Serravallian age ( c . 12 Ma). A younger assemblage was observed from the more northern Kenslow Top Pit; this indicates that a subtropical mixed forest was present during the early Tortonian (11.6–9 Ma). The shift from a conifer-dominated to a mixed forest was related to precipitation. Although the total precipitation did not change between the two assemblages, the younger assemblage had more uniform rainfall throughout the year. The diachronous nature of the Kenslow Member means that the depositional model of the Brassington Formation needs revising, and this will have implications for Neogene to recent uplift of the southern Pennines. Supplementary material: All valid formally defined palynomorph taxa below the generic level that are mentioned in this paper, with full author citations, are available at http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/SUP18889 .