Jean-Claude Paicheler

Un gisement sparnacien exceptionnel à plantes, arthropodes et vertébrés (Éocène basal, MP7): Le Quesnoy (Oise, France)

A new fossil locality is reported from the argiles a lignite du Soisonnais (Early Ypresian, MP7) of the Oise region (France). After the preliminary survey of the flora and the vertebrate and arthropod faunas, we propose a reconstruction of a fluvio-lacustrine palaeoenvironment with a forest, under a warm and wet seasonal climate. This site is outstanding because of the richness, diversity and the state of preservation of the fossils. The present discovery opens a unique window on terrestrial life during the Earliest Eocene.

New Genera and Species of Psychodoid Flies from the Lower Cretaceous Amber Lebanon

Until now, only two Psychodoidea were known from Lebanese amber. We describe two new genera and species of Phlebotomidae (Mesophlebotomites hennigi gen. et sp. nov., Libanophlebotomus lutfallahi gen. et sp. nov.) and four new genera with six new species of Psychodidae (Paleopsychoda solignaci gen. et sp. nov., Paleopsychoda jacquelinae sp. nov., Protopsychoda nadiae gen. et sp. nov., Protopsychoda hammanaensis sp. nov., Libanopsychoda abillamai gen. et sp. nov., Cretapsychoda inexpectata gen. et sp. nov.) from the Lower Cretaceous amber of Hammana/Mdeirij, Lebanon. These fossils are included in a phylogenetic analysis of the subfamilies of Psychodoidea. This superfamily was probably as diverse in the Early Cretaceous as now.

Modele sedimentaire et evolution geodynamique du Nord-Est de la Meseta occidentale marocaine au cours du Carbonifere inferieur

Abstract The Early Carboniferous sediments of the North-East of the Moroccan western Meseta are very diversified. They contain numerous types of carbonates, deposited upon shallow shelves, as well as deeper gravity and hemipelagic deposits. The progressive Early Carboniferous transgression, starts from the Agourai area at V2a and reaches Imouzzer of Kandar at V3bγ. The opening of the North-East of the western Meseta basin by strike-slip NE–SW faults, is V2a in age. This basin evolved in an extensive context during all of the Early Carboniferous. These sediments were stricken by a compressive deformation between the Late Namurian and Permian times.

Context and genesis of the Lebanese amberiferous palaeoenvironments at the Jurassic-Cretaceous transition

The Lebanese amber is still the oldest for Gondwanaland and its fauna is relatively well studied; as to date about 180 taxa have been described from this material. Nevertheless, the formation of the different Lebanese amberiferous outcrops is not yet clearly understood. We propose a new hypothesis and interpretation for the formation of amber deposits in the Late Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous Lebanese sediments. We thus evoke the evolution of the stratigraphy and the geodynamical context that lead to the amber deposition. Indeed, tectonic complexity of what is now a part of the Middle East area existed since the Precambrian times and is still modeling its geology. We redefine as well Lebanon during the formation of its amber deposits, but we do not conclude on the real age of this amber.