JJees Volume 5, Number 1, . 2013 ISSN 1995-6681 Pages 17- 22 Jordan Journal of Earth and Environmental Sciences Charcoal Remains from the Mukheiris Formation of Jordan – the First Evidence of Palaeowildfire from the Anisian (Middle Triassic) of Gondwana Abdalla Abu Hamad 1,* , André Jasper 2 and Dieter Uhl 3,4 1 Deaprtment of Geology, The University of Jordan, Amman 11942, Jordan 2 Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ambiente e Desenvolvimento da UNIVATES (PPGAD/UNIVATES), Centro Universitário Univates, Rua Avelino Tallini, 171 – CEP 95.900-000, Lajeado, RS, Brasil 3 Senckenberg Forschungsinstitut und Naturmuseum, Senckenberganlage 25, 60325 Frankfurt am Main, Germany; 4 Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoecology, Institut für Geowissenschaften, Universität Tübingen, Sigwartstraße 10, 72076 Tübingen, Germany Received: 16 th October 2011; accepted: 2 th September 2012 Abstract During recent field work on the Triassic of Jordan fossil charcoal remains have been discovered from the Lower Member of the Middle Triassic Mukheiris Formation (Anisian) at the eastern rim of the Dead Sea. This material represents the first evidence for palaeowildfires during the Anisian of Gondwana and only the second macroscopic evidence from the Anisian on a global scale. The charcoal shows anatomical features typical of gymnosperms, but at the moment nothing can be said about the taxonomic affinity of the woods, due to the fragmentary nature of the remains. Our data suggest also that, like in other regions worldwide, the land vegetation in the Near-East region had already recovered, at least to some extent, from the devastating effects of the end-Permian ecological crisis and that wildfires occurred in these ecosystems, although nothing can be stated at the moment about frequencies and intensities of such fires. © 2013 Jordan Journal of Earth and Environmental Sciences. All rights reserved Keywords: Triassic, Anisian, Gondwana, Palaeowildfire, Charcoal. * Corresponding author. e-mail: a.abuhamad@ju.edu.jo. 1. Introduction In the modern world fires are an important source of disturbance in a number of different ecosystems (Bowman et al., 2009) and it is known from the fossil record of charcoal that fires occurred ever since the invasion of the continents by embryophytic plants in the Silurian (Glasspool et al., 2004). However, when we have a closer look at the fossil record of charcoal we will see that there are some periods where we have no or almost no evidence for the occurrence of wildfires (Scott, 2000, 2010; Diessel, 2010). One of these periods is the Early and Middle Triassic (Scott, 2000, 2010; Uhl et al., 2008; Diessel, 2010; Abu Hamad et al., 2012). There is only a single record of microscopic charcoal from the entire Early Triassic as well as from the Anisian (both from the Barents sea: Mangerud and Rømuld, 1991), a single record of macroscopic charcoal from the Anisian (from SW- Germany: Uhl et al., 2010), and only two records from the Ladinian (one from Argentina: Mancuso, 2009; and one from S-Germany: Kelber, 1999, 2001, 2003, and 2007). Here we report the first record of fossil charcoal from the Anisian of Jordan, a finding that represents not only the first record of Anisian charcoal from the Gondwana but also only the second substantiated record of macroscopic charcoal from the Anisian on a g lobal scale (cf. Uhl et al., 2010). This report is also interesting from a regional point of view, as the Early and Middle Triassic macrofloras are rare in many areas worldwide (Rees, 2002; Grauvogel-Stamm and Ash, 2005) and almost nothing is so far known about such floras for the entire Near East region. Although a number of studies have dealt with the palynology of Triassic sediments from Jordan and adjacent countries (e.g. Cirilli and Eshet, 1991; Abu Hamad, 2004; Buratti and Cirilli, 2007), not much is currently known about macroscopic plants from this period and region. So far several authors briefly mentioned the occurrence of unspecified fossil plant remains and especially “driftwood” in sediments of the Middle Triassic (Anisian) Mukheiris