干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

By identifying and separating the regional and local components of successive palynological assemblages from the Estherienschichten, Schilfsandstein and Lehrbergschichten in southern Germany, it is demonstrated that during Late Triassic (Carnian) times the regional vegetation remained consistently dominated by xerophytic conifers, indicative of arid climatic conditions. In the Schilfsandstein, the predominant bennettitalean and pteridophytic elements represent a much more locally derived component, corresponding to a variety of vegetation types growing on permanently moist, wet or water-saturated substrates. Widespread but local humid environmental conditions should be ascribed to high groundwater tables in a fluvial depositionary setting, rather than to a climatically induced ’’pluvial event’’.