Permian "vegetational Pompeii": A peat-forming in situ preserved forest from the Wuda Coalfield, Inner Mongolia, China - Introduction to a volume of detailed studies
Abstract
This is an introductory paper to the whole Volume dedicated to the famous Wuda locality in Inner Mongolia, China. Its unique and unusually well preserved occurrence of an earliest Permian coal-forming forest preserved in volcanic tuff layer as a T0 fossil lagerstätte.
Contributions in the volume present the most recent results of the studies held by Chinese paleobotanists together with Czech and American colleagues for nearly two decades. Plants buried by volcanic ash were preserved in situ, so that the structure of the vegetation can be reconstructed.
Based on the taphonomic similarities with the world-famous Italian UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Roman city of Pompeii, the Wuda Tuff Flora can be called a "vegetational Pompeii". Such a T0 deposit provides an unrivalled chance to reconstruct not only the taxonomic diversity but also the vegetation structure and density, small- to medium-scale distribution patterns, and synecological associations.