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The Curvicubitidae is a Triassic cicada family with some taxa systematically debatable. Here a new curvicubitid species, Beaconiella tongchuanensis sp. nov., is established from the Middle Triassic Tongchuan Entomofauna in NW China. Restudy of the two Australian species of Beaconiella Evans, 1963 (B. fennahi and B. multivenata) confirms that they are different species and first reveals the hindwing venation of B. multivenata. A detailed restudy of Curvicubitus triassicus Hong, 1984 confirms the treatment of Curvicubitus as a junior synonym of Beaconiella. A key to all the six species of Beaconiella in Curvicubitidae is first given. Although reported from only three sites, the family Curvicubitidae potentially was globally distributed during the Middle–Late Triassic, implying that this family probably originated as early as the Early Triassic or even the Permian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new procercopid species Stellularis kazuoensis sp. nov. is established and described from the Lower Cretaceous Jiufotang Formation in the Kazuo Basin, western Liaoning Province, NE China. It is characterised by the tegmen with singular RA, RP and M veins; vein M+CuA about half length of vein R; vein RA curved in apical area; and crossvein m-cua apicad of CuA2 end but basad of ir and r-m. The new species not only increases the diversity of Procercopidae but also provides more tegminal information of the genus Stellularis. The venational distinctions on tegmen between S. kazuoensis sp. nov. and the other species of Stellularis are schematically shown and discussed. The record of fossil insects from the Jiufotang Formation is also summarised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new genus and species of Stenoviciidae, Pseudostenovicia evansi, is established and described based on a tegmen from the Upper Permian Belmont insect bed of Newcastle coal measures of New South Wales, Australia. There are nine species within nine genera of family Stenoviciidae, seven of which were found in the same stratum and locality. The new species can be distinguished from other species by its three-branched MP, crossvein m-cu almost in the same line with basal part of vein CuA1. The new species increases the diversity and provides more tegminal information of the family Stenoviciidae. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A distinct coal break occurs widely in the late Early Jurassic in Central Asia, the cause of which, however, is still debated largely due to the uncertainty of its age constraint. In the Junggar Basin of northwestern China, this coal break coincides with the Sangonghe Formation, which is well exposed along the basin margins, and is mainly composed of lacustrine deposits rich in a variety of fossils, including plants, pollens and spores, bivalves, clam shrimps, insects and some vertebrates. Here we name them as the Sangonghe biota and review their biostratigraphic framework. The Sangonghe biota constrains the Sangonghe Formation to the late Pliensbachian to the early Aalenian. Abundant thermophilous plants and Classopollis, together with frequent occurrences of red beds and carbonate nodules in the middle part of the Sangonghe Formation, are indicative of an arid climate in Central Asia at that time. This arid interlude should be responsible for the coal break, which may be related to the global warming in the early Toarcian. However, more precise dating evidence is needed to substantiate this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new scytinopterid species, Mesoscytina tongchuanensis sp. nov., is established based on a tegmen collected from the Middle Triassic Tongchuan Formation in Shaanxi Province, NW China. The new species can be easily separated from its congeners by the narrow tegminal apex, less curved terminal branches of stems RP, M and CuA and crossvein r-m connected to long vein M1+2. This discovery represents the first record of Mesoscytina from the Tongchuan Formation in China and suggests that the genus Mesoscytina spread much more widely from Gondwana to northern Pangea in the Middle Triassic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As basal group of mega-diverse Cicadelloidea (leafhoppers), the Mesozoic family Archijassidae has been widely recorded from the Upper Triassic of Australia and the Lower Jurassic to mid-Cretaceous of Eurasia; its precise document in China, however, is scarce. We herein describe and illustrate Karamayojassus xinjiangensis gen. et sp. n. based upon an isolated tegmen from the Lower Jurassic Badaowan Formation at the Tuziakeneigou outcrop of Junggar Basin, Xinjiang, NW China, representing the first discovery of Archijassidae in the Jurassic of China. The new genus and species can be attributed to the subfamily Archijassinae on the basis of a series of venational characteristics, and is distinctly discriminated from known archijassines by some critical tegminal traits. Karamayojassus gen. n. is likely related to the two genera (Cixiella and Mesocicada) from the Lower Jurassic of Kyrgyzstan by sharing a synapomorphic venational feature (long stem R + M present). We propose to resurrect Cixiella and Mesojassus from synonymy, since the two genera possess tegminal venation distinctly different from that of Archijassus. Our find not only adds novel morphological information on extinct archijassids, but also provides new data about the entomological assemblage of the Tuziakeneigou outcrop. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The non-marine bivalve Ferganoconcha occurred widely in palaeolakes in the high-middle latitude of northern China, Siberia and Central Asia during the Early and Middle Jurassic and was an important member of these lacustrine ecosystems. The diagnostic features and phylogenetic position of Ferganoconcha are still under debate. Here, based on nearly one hundred of Ferganoconcha specimens from the lacustrine and fluvial facies of the Junggar Basin in northwestern China, it is clearly shown that its most important distinctive features are the thin and flatted to weakly inflated shell covered with wrinkled ornament and the ligament is well-developed. This kind of shell indicate that the Ferganoconcha is a weak suspension feeder, burrowing rapidly and living in fine-soft substrata of the 'low energy' environments. In addition, we conclude that the dispersal pattern of the Ferganoconcha generally followed the cool to temperate and humid paleoclimate zone in northern China during the Early to Middle Jurassic, making the genus a possible palaeclimatic indicator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phase change material (PCM) mixed in soil can effectively adjust the subgrade temperature. In order to analyze the temperature field change of soil containing PCM more accurately from the microscopic point of view, it is a key problem to construct a refined geometric model. This paper scans the fracture plane of soil containing PCM through the stereoscopic microscope and prepares the label image corresponding to the sample image. Then a U-Net semantic segmentation model is established, which can accurately recognize PCM area and soil area. Finally, a geometric model of soil containing PCM that is consistent with reality is established, and its heat transfer characteristics are analyzed by finite element method. The accuracy evaluation of the segmentation model and the visualization of the recognition results show that the evaluation indexes of U-Net are the best. P, R, F1, and MIoU of U-Net are 0.889, 0.918, 0.903, and 0.901, respectively. The refined model established in this paper can not only observe the overall temperature regulation effect of the material but also accurately describe the internal temperature distribution details of soil containing PCM during heat transfer. Through numerical simulation, it is found that the maximum temperature of mixture decreases by 1.6 °C and the minimum temperature of mixture increases by 2.3 °C. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]