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1. Calcic Vertisols in the upper Daptocephalus Assemblage Zone, Balfour Formation, Karoo Basin, South Africa: Implications for Late Permian Climate

   https://doi.org/10.2110/jsr.2020.32  

   Gastaldo, Robert A.; Kus, Kaci; Tabor, Neil; Neveling, Johann (June 2020, Journal of Sedimentary Research)

   ABSTRACT The fully continental succession of the Beaufort Group, Karoo Basin, South Africa, has been used in the development of environmental models proposed for the interval that spans the contact between the Daptocephalus to Lystrosaurus Assemblage Zones, associated by some workers with the end-Permian extinction event. An aridification trend is widely accepted, yet geochemical data indicate that the majority of in situ paleosols encountered in this interval developed in waterlogged environments. To date, the presence of calcic paleosols in the latest Permian can be inferred only from the presence of calcite-cemented pedogenic nodules concentrated in fluvial channel-lag deposits. Here, we report on the first empirical evidence of in situ calcic Vertisols found in the upper Daptocephalus Assemblage Zone near Old Wapadsberg Pass, one of eight classic localities in which the vertebrate turnover is reported in the Karoo Basin. Seven discrete intervals of calcic Vertisols, exposed over a very limited lateral extent, occur in an ∼ 25 m stratigraphic interval. Estimates of mean annual temperature and mean annual precipitation are calculated from geochemical measurements of one paleosol, and these estimates indicate that the prevailing climate at the time of pedogenesis was seasonally cold and humid. Correlation with adjacent stratigraphic sections indicates that the late Permian landscape experienced poorly drained and better-drained phases, interpreted to reflect a climate that varied between episodically dry and episodically wet. In contrast to a paleoenvironmental reconstruction of unidirectional aridification from strata in the Wapadsberg Pass region, this study provides new evidence for a wetting trend towards the Daptocephalus–Lystrosaurus Assemblage-Zone boundary. 

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2. Refined Permian−Triassic floristic timeline reveals early collapse and delayed recovery of south polar terrestrial ecosystems

   https://doi.org/10.1130/B35355.1  

   Mays, Chris; Vajda, Vivi; Frank, Tracy D.; Fielding, Christopher R.; Nicoll, Robert S.; Tevyaw, Allen P.; McLoughlin, Stephen (November 2019, GSA Bulletin)

   The collapse of late Permian (Lopingian) Gondwanan floras, characterized by the extinction of glossopterid gymnosperms, heralded the end of one of the most enduring and extensive biomes in Earth’s history. The Sydney Basin, Australia, hosts a near-continuous, age-constrained succession of high southern paleolatitude (∼65−75°S) terrestrial strata spanning the end-Permian extinction (EPE) interval. Sedimentological, stable carbon isotopic, palynological, and macrofloral data were collected from two cored coal-exploration wells and correlated. Six palynostratigraphic zones, supported by ordination analyses, were identified within the uppermost Permian to Lower Triassic succession, corresponding to discrete vegetation stages before, during, and after the EPE interval. Collapse of the glossopterid biome marked the onset of the terrestrial EPE and may have significantly predated the marine mass extinctions and conodont-defined Permian−Triassic Boundary. Apart from extinction of the dominant Permian plant taxa, the EPE was characterized by a reduction in primary productivity, and the immediate aftermath was marked by high abundances of opportunistic fungi, algae, and ferns. This transition is coeval with the onset of a gradual global decrease in δ13Corg and the primary extrusive phase of Siberian Traps Large Igneous Province magmatism. The dominant gymnosperm groups of the Gondwanan Mesozoic (peltasperms, conifers, and corystosperms) all appeared soon after the collapse but remained rare throughout the immediate post-EPE succession. Faltering recovery was due to a succession of rapid and severe climatic stressors until at least the late Early Triassic. Immediately prior to the Smithian−Spathian boundary (ca. 249 Ma), indices of increased weathering, thick redbeds, and abundant pleuromeian lycophytes likely signify marked climate change and intensification of the Gondwanan monsoon climate system. This is the first record of the Smithian−Spathian floral overturn event in high southern latitudes. 

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3. Palaeocupressinoxylon uniseriale n. gen. n. sp., a gymnospermous wood from the upper Permian of Central Taodonggou, southern Bogda Mountains, northwestern China

   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.palwor.2019.06.002  

   Wan, M.L.; Yang, W.; Wang, J. (January 2020, Palaeoworld)

   A silicified wood, Palaeocupressinoxylon uniseriale n. gen. n. sp., is described from the upper Permian of the Central Taodonggou section,Turpan–Hami Basin, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, northwestern China. Multidisciplinary data including U–Pb ID–TIMS zircon dating,vertebrate and invertebrate biostratigraphic, and cyclostratigraphic correlation from current and previous studies indicate that the fossil bearinginterval is Wuchiapingian (late Permian) in age. The pycnoxylic wood consists of thick-walled tracheids and parenchymatous rays. It is characterizedby separated uniseriate radial tracheidal pits, uniseriate ray cells, and cupressoid cross-field pitting. The absence of growth rings in the wood,together with the occurrence of Argillisols, Gleysols, and Histosols above and below the fossil interval, suggests that a stable landscape and aperennially humid climate prevailed in the Taodonggou area during the Wuchiapingian. 

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4. Template Matching Based Early Exit CNN for Energy-efficient Myocardial Infarction Detection on Low-power Wearable Devices

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3534580  

   Rashid, Nafiul; Demirel, Berken_Utku; Odema, Mohanad; Al_Faruque, Mohammad_Abdullah (July 2022, Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies)

   Myocardial Infarction (MI), also known as heart attack, is a life-threatening form of heart disease that is a leading cause of death worldwide. Its recurrent and silent nature emphasizes the need for continuous monitoring through wearable devices. The wearable device solutions should provide adequate performance while being resource-constrained in terms of power and memory. This paper proposes an MI detection methodology using a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) that outperforms the state-of-the-art works on wearable devices for two datasets - PTB and PTB-XL, while being energy and memory-efficient. Moreover, we also propose a novel Template Matching based Early Exit (TMEX) CNN architecture that further increases the energy efficiency compared to baseline architecture while maintaining similar performance. Our baseline and TMEX architecture achieve 99.33% and 99.24% accuracy on PTB dataset, whereas on PTB-XL dataset they achieve 84.36% and 84.24% accuracy, respectively. Both architectures are suitable for wearable devices requiring only 20 KB of RAM. Evaluation of real hardware shows that our baseline architecture is 0.6x to 53x more energy-efficient than the state-of-the-art works on wearable devices. Moreover, our TMEX architecture further improves the energy efficiency by 8.12% (PTB) and 6.36% (PTB-XL) while maintaining similar performance as the baseline architecture. 

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5. Age and Paleoenvironmental Significance of the Frazer Beach Member—A New Lithostratigraphic Unit Overlying the End-Permian Extinction Horizon in the Sydney Basin, Australia

   https://doi.org/10.3389/feart.2020.600976  

   McLoughlin, Stephen; Nicoll, Robert S.; Crowley, James L.; Vajda, Vivi; Mays, Chris; Fielding, Christopher R.; Frank, Tracy D.; Wheeler, Alexander; Bocking, Malcolm (January 2021, Frontiers in Earth Science)

   null (Ed.)

   The newly defined Frazer Beach Member of the Moon Island Beach Formation is identified widely across the Sydney Basin in both outcrop and exploration wells. This thin unit was deposited immediately after extinction of the Glossopteris flora (defining the terrestrial end-Permian extinction event). The unit rests conformably on the uppermost Permian coal seam in most places. A distinctive granule-microbreccia bed is locally represented at the base of the member. The unit otherwise consists of dark gray to black siltstone, shale, mudstone and, locally, thin lenses of fine-grained sandstone and tuff. The member represents the topmost unit of the Newcastle Coal Measures and is overlain gradationally by the Dooralong Shale or with a scoured (disconformable) contact by coarse-grained sandstones to conglomerates of the Coal Cliff Sandstone, Munmorah Conglomerate and laterally equivalent units. The member is characterized by a palynological “dead zone” represented by a high proportion of degraded wood fragments, charcoal, amorphous organic matter and fungal spores. Abundant freshwater algal remains and the initial stages of a terrestrial vascular plant recovery flora are represented by low-diversity spore-pollen suites in the upper part of the unit in some areas. These assemblages are referable to the Playfordiaspora crenulata Palynozone interpreted as latest Permian in age on the basis of high precision Chemical Abrasion Isotope Dilution Thermal Ionization Mass Spectrometry (CA-IDTIMS) dating of thin volcanic ash beds within and stratigraphically bracketing the unit. Plant macrofossils recovered from the upper Frazer Beach Member and immediately succeeding strata are dominated by Lepidopteris (Peltaspermaceae) and Voltziopsis (Voltziales) with subsidiary pleuromeian lycopsids, sphenophytes, and ferns. Sparse vertebrate and invertebrate ichnofossils are also represented in the Frazer Beach Member or in beds immediately overlying this unit. The Frazer Beach Member is correlative, in part, with a thin interval of organic-rich mudrocks, commonly known as the “marker mudstone” capping the Permian succession further to the north in the Bowen, Galilee and Cooper basins. The broad geographic distribution of this generally <5-m-thick mudrock unit highlights the development in eastern Gondwana of extensive, short-lived, shallow lacustrine systems with impoverished biotas in alluvial plain settings in the immediate aftermath of the end-Permian biotic crisis. 

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