Geosciences

Right and bowhead whales represent key species in modern-day marine ecosystems because of their capacity to catch enormous amounts of prey items (especially calanoid copepod crustaceans). However, their evolutionary history is still not completely understood. Morphology- and molecule-based phylogenetic analyses failed to find a consensus view about the relationships of balaenids and other mysticete species and in determining the intra-family relationships of extant and fossil taxa. The fossil record may help in increasing the precision of morphology-based phylogenetic results when new balaenid species are discovered because the new fossils may add new character combinations able to change previously published hypotheses of relationships. Here, we describe a new balaenid genus and species, Quasibalaena portisantuerpiae, based on a partial skull from the Early Pliocene of Belgium. The new specimen preserves relevant portions of the cranium, periotic and tympanic bulla, and shows a character combination never observed up to now in other balaenid fossils. We compared the new taxon to all the other balaenid species known and included it in a morphology-based phylogenetic analysis. The results suggest that Balaenidae includes a stem group and two main subclades, respectively related to the extant bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus) and to the right whales (genus Eubalaena). Quasibalaena portisantuerpiae belongs in the former subclade. Body size reconstruction allowed us to infer that the origin of the Balaena-related clade was characterized by a miniaturization process and that gigantism occurred independently in bowhead and right whales.

Root systems, the hidden half of terrestrial plants, have been a fundamental geological agent since the late Early Paleozoic, with their evolution preserved in a rich but underutilized archive of soils and sediments. This review adopts a rhizolith-centric perspective to trace the co-evolution of root systems and the Earth’s surface environment from the Silurian to the present. Two profound, linked transitions are recognized. The first is the Devonian “Rooting Revolution,” during which true roots and their mycorrhizal partners scaled up silicate weathering, drawing down atmospheric CO₂ and contributing to the initiation of the Late Paleozoic Ice Age. The second is the Mesozoic–Cenozoic “Rhizosphere Expansion,” led by angiosperms, which greatly amplified the existing weathering engine through higher transpiration, denser fibrous roots, and more diverse rhizosphere microbial and mycorrhizal communities. Reading rhizoliths through their morphology, mineralogy, and isotopic signatures makes it possible to reconstruct how roots became central regulators of long-term carbon and phosphorus cycling, builders of the pedosphere, and stabilizers of landscapes. Beyond these geochemical roles, this also integrates the dimension of roots as a persistent nutritional resource for terrestrial vertebrates—from Early Permian stem amniotes and early synapsids and reptiles to Pleistocene megafauna and early hominins. By synthesizing evidence from paleontology, sedimentology, geochemistry, and vertebrate paleoecology, this review offers a rhizolith-centric framework—anchored by the two linked transitions described above—for refining Earth system models and for understanding the feedbacks between root evolution and global environmental change.

Pressure-limited dynamic capacity in the Lopín structure is controlled primarily by reservoir transmissibility rather than by static pore volume. This study applies a MATLAB/MRST vertical-equilibrium (VE) workflow to the Lopín horst, a deep Triassic Buntsandstein aquifer in the Ebro Basin, NE Spain, and evaluates the sensitivity of the results to seven petrophysical, fluid, and operational parameters using a one-at-a-time sensitivity design (35 sensitivity cases plus one base case). Across the tested range, horizontal permeability produced the largest variation in maximum injectable CO₂ mass, from 4.67 to 16.25 Mt (range 11.59 Mt), followed by the adopted BHP threshold (range 5.33 Mt) and CO₂ density (range 4.74 Mt). Porosity and brine compressibility had only minor effects, whereas injection rate and residual CO₂ saturation did not change the BHP-limited capacity under the adopted capacity-search formulation. The base-case operational BHP limit was 28.5 MPa, selected below the site-specific allowable- and estimated fracture-pressure thresholds reported for Lopín. These results show that pressure dissipation, hydraulic transmissibility, and the explicit choice of operational pressure criterion are the dominant controls on dynamic CO₂ storage capacity in this fault-bounded saline aquifer.