Caradocian land plant microfossils from Libya

The oldest paleontologically well-dated spore tetrads and cuti-like sheets of cells have been recovered from beds of Caradoc (mid-Ordovician) age from boreholes in the Murzuq (Murzuq) and Rhadames (Ghadamis) Basins of western Libya. These microfossils (together with late Llanvirn–early Wenlock vascular plant megafossils (lycophytes and Psilophyton)) known from Libya lead us to conclude that land plants, including vascular plants, probably had a long pre-Silurian record, extending at least into the basal Caradocian. Additional evidence suggests that this record does not extend as far back as the earlier Late Cambrian (Dresbachian).