Paleobotanical research in Ukraine

Palaeobotanical research in Ukraine has a history of more than one hundred and fifty years, which is calculated from the time of publication (1872) of the work of A.V. Gurov “Fossil organic remains of Donetsk coal deposits”. The research was conducted by scientists from Kyiv, Lviv, Luhansk, Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Artemivsk. The most numerous was the team of palaeobotanists of the Institute of Geological Sciences of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, headed by the corresponding member E.O. Novik. The stratigraphy of carbonaceous deposits, patterns in the development of the coal flora, and issues of coal accumulation were the areas that were developed under her leadership by experts, such as O.I. Anisimova, T.A. Ishchenko, O.P. Fisunenko and O.K. Shchogolev. Mesozoic and Cenozoic floras were studied by E.E. Mihacheva, F.А. Stanislavsky, Yu.V. Teslenko, N.Ya. Shvaryova and others. The great work of the academician of the USSR, A.M. Kryshtofovych, is the book “Paleobotany”, which includes numerous discoveries of fossil plants from Ukrainian sections. A significant contribution to the development of palaeobotany in Ukraine, its theoretical foundations, and methodology was made by professors O.P. Fisunenko and O.K. Shchogolev. O.P. Fisunenko dealt with the theory and methodology of stratigraphy, analysis of the natural-philosophical problem of time in geology, in seeing the path of detailed development of stratigraphy through the Phanerozoic, taking into account the general laws of evolution of the biota and crust. O.K. Shchogolev initiated a new synthetic biological-geological-geographical scientific direction in palaeobotany–paleophytogeocenology. O.P. Gubskaya studied the plant communities of the Bashkirian and Moscovian (Carboniferous) stages of Donbas. A.A. Ishchenko studied the Silurian algae flora and the Kuksonia flora of Volyn-Podillya. F.A. Stanislavsky’s works on the Triassic leaf flora and middle Jurassic of the north-western outskirts of Donbas have received worldwide recognition. Yu.V. Teslenko studied the flora of the Jurassic and Cenozoic, developed the concept of phased development of the Earth’s vegetation depending on changes in the chemical composition of the atmosphere. He established the vertical botanical and geographical zonation of the eastern regions of the Tethys and Paratethys in the Miocene and Pliocene. The Cenomanian flora near the town of Kaniv (Ukrainian Shield, Central Ukraine) was studied in 1939 by N.V. Pimenova. Later, M.P. Doludenko, E.I. Kostina and I.A. Shilkina attributed this flora to the late Albian. Also, notable are the achievements of Ukrainian paleobotanists L.T. Malyshko and S.O. Molchanov, who studied the Eocene, Oligocene and Neogene floras of the western territory of Ukraine. Today palaeobotanists of the Institute of Geological Sciences of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine are working actively. This team includes N.I. Boyarina, who studies the flora of the Palaeozoic and A.I. Martyshyn, who studies the Ediacaran biota. Also, V.P. Hrytsenko has made great achievements in the study of the Ediacarian algae of Podillya (southwestern Ukraine) from the National Science and Natural History Museum of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Currently, the Paleontological Museum of the Taras Shevchenko National University, namely the Institute of Geology, has a collection of late Albian–Cenomanian plants from the outskirts of Kaniv. This collection is replenished and studied by teachers and students during their annual research internships in this region (Popova, Moroz, 2010). We have recently launched a comprehensive palaeobotanical and palynological research program in Ukraine. Thus, the Bathonian deposits of the north-western outskirts of Donbas (Shevchuk, Slater, Vajda, 2018), the upper Albian-Cenomanian deposits from central part of the Ukrainian Shield (Shevchuk, 2021) were studied.