U-Pb ages of detrital zircons were measured by LA-ICPMS for a Lower Cretaceous coal-associated sandstone in the Laoelin-Grodekov (L-G) belt, South Primorye, Russia. The non-marine Lipovtsy Formation in the Razdol’naya coal basin is enriched in coal seams and Early Cretaceous paleoflora called the “Late Lipovtsy floristic assemblage“, which is characterized by diverse ferns, gymnosperms, and the earliest angiosperms. Dated zircons from the Upper Lipovtsy Fm contain abundant Jurassic grains with the youngest of 112 Ma (early Albian). The estimated depositional age of the sandstone, the early Albian or younger, constrains the appearance timing of angiosperms in Primorye to be no earlier than the Albian, slightly younger than previously thought. The age spectrum of detrital zircons of the upper Lipovtsy sandstone is characterized by the abundance in Early Jurassic grains with minor amount of Triassic and Early Cretaceous ones and without Precambrian ones. This pattern is nearly identical to those of coeval sandstones deposited on the Jiamusi block (Greater South China: GSC; China/Russia), Central Asian orogenic belt (China/Mongolia), and the Hida belt (Japan). These similarities in detrital zircon ages and paleofloras support the pre-Japan Sea connection between the L-G and Hida belts developed on the west of GSC.

The Kunisaki district in the eastern part of northern Kyushu is interpreted to be the western extension of the Ryoke belt. Zircon U–Pb ages of 8 granitoid samples from the district were obtained. Granite samples from the western part of the district are 96–100 Ma in U–Pb age and are attributed to the Ryoke belt. Granitoid samples from the eastern part of the district show relatively older ages than the western part, 108–110 Ma which is consistent with the Higo belt rather than the Ryoke belt. The granitoids in the district broadly become younger towards the northwest, from the oceanic side to continental side as well as the western side of central to northern Kyushu. Although the extension of the Ryoke belt was confirmed in the eastern side of Kyushu in this paper, the western extension of the Ryoke belt remains unclear.

Newly identified specimens of Early Triassic conodont species were found in the Lang Son area, northern Vietnam. Eurygnathodus costatus Staesche, 1964 was found in the Smithian (lower Olenekian) part of the Lang Son Formation in Route A of Ky Cung River area. Icriospathodus zaksi (Buryi) and Novispathodus sp. C were found in the uppermost Smithian part of the Bac Thuy Formation in Ban Ru area. These species update the regional biostratigraphical successions of the Lang Son and Bac Thuy formations. In addition, the Lang Son and Bac Thuy formations will be good reference sections to study the presumed evolutionary trends of Eu. costatus and Ic. zaksi, respectively.

An almost two-year investigation of surface water in Lake Biwa showed annual cyclic changes in cell density and size of the diatom Praestephanos suzukii. Cell density increased abruptly to >10⁵ cells/L in late summer (late August or September), and gradually decreased to <10³ cells/L during autumn and winter. Living cells were rarely observed during late spring to early summer. Small cells (<15 µm diameter) were dominant during the late-summer bloom, and the modal size decreased over the following 1–2 months. Large cells (>45 µm in diameter) were observed after the bloom (in October–December), and some had hemispherical initial valves on one or both sides. Cell size decreased during times when cell density decreased or remained low. These observations suggest that P. suzukii has a one-year life cycle with sexual reproduction in autumn just after the late-summer bloom. The onset of the bloom coincided with a decline in surface water temperature and the beginning of vertical mixing.

One of the earliest plant fossil specimens in the National Museum of Nature and Science collection was systematically studied, and its history was reviewed. The specimen is a sandstone block from Mifune in Kumamoto Prefecture, Southwest Japan, yielding five “platanoid” leaves scattered on the mudstone cap. Variably oriented leaves from the same species suggest that they were deposited parautochthonously. The leaves were identified as Ettingshausenia cuneifolia (Bronn) Stiehler, which were common on the Eurasian continent during the Cenomanian–Turonian age of the Late Cretaceous. To our knowledge, this is the southernmost record of this species in Far East Asia. The lithological features of the specimen and age range of the fossil species are concordant with those of the Upper Formation of the Mifune Group (Turonian–Coniacian). We confirmed the occurrence of this species in several localities. Although the timing of collection and collector (s) remains unclear, we assumed that the specimen was collected after the initial paleobotanical work by a Swedish paleobotanist A. G. Nathorst in 1888, who first reported the fragmentary specimens of the Mifune Group sent by E. Naumann and M. Yokoyama of the Geological Survey of Japan in 1884.

As the first record of the Devonian auloporid corals from the Kurosegawa Belt, the present study describes three Givetian (late Middle Devonian) species from the Naidaijin Formation in Kumamoto Prefecture, Kyushu Island, Southwest Japan. They are two auloporoids, Aulopora sp. indet. and Kumamotolites patulus gen. et sp. nov. and a single syringoporoid, Syringopora sp. indet. Because Kumamotolites closely resembles the genus Bajgolia, this new genus is tentatively assigned to the family Bajgoliidae that was monotypic and restricted in the Ordovician.

Three species of halysitid tabulate corals, Halysites miyazakiensis Niko and Adachi, 2014, Schedohalysites kitakamiensis (Sugiyama, 1940) and Catenipora seiyoensis sp. nov., are described from limestones of the Okanaro Group in southwestern Ehime Prefecture, Shikoku Island, Southwest Japan. Distinctive features of C. seiyoensis from other Silurian species of the genus are as follows: large corallites with low form ratios (length/width); thickened corallite walls; and poorly developed septal spines. The age given by the present halysitid assemblage is the Ludlow (early late Silurian).

A new favositid tabulate coral species that introduced by Niko et al. (2018) but remained unavailable from the lower Permian Jamal Formation, Iran, is described and validated herein as Sutherlandia jamalensis Niko, Badpa, Ghaderi and Ataei, sp. nov.

Because six species of tabulate corals proposed by Niko (2019, 2022) are insufficient in satisfying zoological nomenclature, Thamnopora sumitaensis Niko, sp. nov., Klaamannipora densitabulata Niko, sp. nov., Pseudofavosites asoensis Niko, sp. nov., Gracilopora delicata Niko, sp. nov., Thamnopora miyamotoi Niko, sp. nov. and Thamnoptychia tanimotoi Niko, sp. nov. are advocated based on reproduction from the original descriptions.

Niko and Badpa (2020, 2021) that proposed a new genus and four species of tabulate corals were issued electronically without satisfying the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, thus descriptions of nominal taxa, Michelinia flugeli Niko and Badpa, sp. nov., Syringopora iranica Niko and Badpa, sp. nov., Sutherlandia khachikensis Niko and Badpa, sp. nov., Julfamichelinia Niko and Badpa, gen. nov., are given herein. A new combination name, Julfamichelinia allata (Tchudinova in Ruzhentsev and Sarycheva, 1965), is produced as the type species of the new genus Julfamichelinia.