Fossil plants from the Viséan of East Kirkton, West Lothian, Scotland

1993 ◽  
Vol 84 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 249-260 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. C. Scott ◽  
R. Brown ◽  
J. Galtier ◽  
B. Meyer-Berthaud
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Study ◽  
Black Shale ◽  
Vegetation Type ◽  
Plant Distribution ◽  
Individual Plant ◽  
Fossil Plants ◽  
Similar Material ◽  
Plant Fossils ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
Sequence Unit

ABSTRACTPlant fossils are a common and important element in the East Kirkton biota of Brigantian (late Viséan age). The most important taxa are preserved as compressions or anatomically preserved as permineralisations. The basis of the quantitative study of the flora and the distribution of individual plant species was the trenched section excavated for the East Kirkton Project. The largest diversity of compressions have been recorded from loose blocks. In the trenched section, the uppermost ashes contain only lycopsid compressions including Stigmaria. Nodules in the underlying shales yield mainly lycopsid leaf and sporophyll compressions. The uppermost limestones (Units 39-52) contain drifted fragments of pteridosperm fronds mainly Sphenopteridium crassum, S. pachyrrhachis, Spathulopteris obovata and Adiantites antiquus. Permineralised Lyginorachis spp. occur at this level. Large permineralised woody gymnosperm axes have been found loose (including Pitus, 50 cm in diameter). Permineralised axes, mainly reworked, including the gymnosperms Bilignea, Eristophyton, Stanwoodia and possibly Protopitys, have been found in Units 72-88. Poorly preserved permineralised lycopsids are rare, but include Lepidophloios. Loose chert blocks contain root mats of permineralised Stigmaria, together with Lepidocarpon, the sphenopsid Archaeocalamites and the fern Botryopteris. Similar material is found in Unit 83 of the Limestone sequence. Unit 82, the black shale containing many of the articulated vertebrates, contains predominantly pteridosperm frond and pinnule material including Spathulopteris obovata. The distinctive changes in the flora from the base to the top of the trenched sequence reflect mainly ecological and taphonomic controls upon plant distribution and preservation. Evidence suggests a close relationship between climate, fire, erosion, deposition and vegetation type through the sequence and a climatic change, from a drier to a wetter environment, is suggested at the top of the East Kirkton Limestone sequence.

scholarly journals Phytosociological Data in Assessment of Anthropogenic Changes in Vegetation of Rzeszów Reservoir

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (16) ◽  
pp. 9071
Author(s):  
Maria Ziaja ◽  
Tomasz Wójcik ◽  
Małgorzata Wrzesień
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Variables ◽  
Vegetation Type ◽  
Plant Distribution ◽  
Vegetation Types ◽  
Ellenberg Indicator Values ◽  
Indicator Values ◽  
Marsh Vegetation ◽  
Se Poland ◽  
Main Factor

Phytosociological research on aquatic and marsh vegetation was conducted in Rzeszów Reservoir (SE Poland): 134 relevés according to the Braun-Blanquet method were collected there in 2016 and compared to 91 relevés published in 1994 (225 relevés in total). Changes in vegetation type, diversity measures, species composition, and Ellenberg Indicator Values (EIVs) for light, moisture, reaction, and nitrogen were analysed. Over the 22 years (1994–2016), the greatest changes were noted in communities of the classes Lemnetea and Potametea and the alliance Salicion albae. The long-term observations demonstrated the disappearance of 14 phytocoenoses and the occurrence of 12 new ones. An expansion of marsh communities (Typhetum latifoliae, Typhetum angustifoliae, Glycerietum maximae, Leersietum oryzoidis) was noted, causing a decline of several species and vegetation types. According to canonical correspondence analysis (CCA), four environmental variables (light, moisture, nitrogen, and pH) were related to plant distribution. The strong disturbances reflected in intensive eutrophication were due to human activity, which is the main factor shaping the ecological succession and overgrowing of the reservoir.

scholarly journals Naming of parts: the use of fossil-taxa in palaeobotany

2021 ◽  
Vol 77 (1) ◽  
pp. 166-186
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Cleal ◽  
Barry A. Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Not Given ◽  
Morphological Similarity ◽  
Fossil Plants ◽  
Living Plant ◽  
Plant Fossils ◽  
Plant Parts ◽  
Sedimentary Deposits ◽  
Phylogenetic Studies ◽  
Code Of Nomenclature ◽  
International Code Of Nomenclature

Fossil plants are extinct plants whose remains (referred to as plant fossils) are found preserved in sedimentary deposits. Plant fossils are classified using fossil-taxa as defined in the International Code of Nomenclature. Fossil-taxa differ conceptually from taxa of living plants in that they often do not refer to whole organisms, but to the remains of one or more parts of the parent organism, in one or more preservational states. There can be complications when two parts of a plant are shown to be connected, or when two preservational states are correlated, and to avoid disrupting the wider palaeobotanical taxonomy it is often best to keep the fossil-taxa separate. Extinct fossil plants reconstructed by piecing together the plant fossils are best not given formal Linnean taxonomic names. There can also be problems using living plant taxa for fossils, even when there is a close morphological similarity of particular plant parts. Fossil-taxa for different plant parts can reflect different taxonomic ranks of the parent plants so care must be taken when using such taxa in floristic or phylogenetic studies. Because of taphonomic factors, a number of “artificial” fossil-taxa have proved useful, despite that they do not fully reflect the systematic positions of the parent plants.

Through a glass darkly

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Beerling
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Developmental Biology ◽  
Scientific Basis ◽  
Microscopic Investigation ◽  
Modern Synthesis ◽  
Fossil Plants ◽  
New Era ◽  
Plant Fossils ◽  
Age Of Discovery ◽  
Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries ◽  
Scientific Truth

Throughout this book we have encountered a varied cast of historical characters, who have pioneered the development of palaeobotanical thought over the past two centuries. Although the fascination of plant fossils has an exceptional pedigree, reaching back to at least the eleventh century, Edward Jacob (Chapter 7) was the earliest of these ‘searchers of scientific truth’ introduced here. Jacob’s eighteenth-century claim to fame lay in his descriptions of the fossilized remains of exotic subtropical floras and faunas in the crumbling sediments around the coastline of the Isle of Sheppey. Jacob was followed by the true palaeobotanical pioneers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, who established the scientific basis for the anatomical and microscopic investigation of fossil plants. Through their synthesis of palaeontological knowledge, they established the study of fossils as technical and exacting, rather than a mere hobby. And a common thread linking us with this ‘golden age’ of discovery and description is the notion that the fossils record some aspects of Earth’s ancient climates. It’s a telling reminder that curiosity compels us to ask why certain fossils are where they are and to speculate on what it means. Albert Seward, who examined Scott of the Antarctic’s fossils (Chapter 6), codified this concept best with his celebrated and timely 1892 essay. Seward’s essay opened the eyes of devotees of fossil plants to possibilities beyond the traditional activities of description and classification. The argument of this book is that the emerging modern synthesis sees the dawning of a new era in the study of fossil plants. I am advocating that this modern synthesis arises out of the seamless integration of new knowledge concerning the physiological and ecological behaviour of living plants and ecosystems into the subject of palaeobotany. The promise of incorporating a powerful and exciting third strand, the science of the genetic pathways controlling the form of organisms—evolutionary developmental biology—into our thinking, is on the horizon. If this view is correct, then the study of living plants may be the driving force for unlocking greater riches from fossilized plant remains.

The Rise, Fall, and Rise of Fire

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew C. Scott
Keyword(s):  
Organic Material ◽  
Fossil Plants ◽  
Tea Leaves ◽  
Natural Approach ◽  
Doctoral Research ◽  
Plant Fossils ◽  
Plant Fragment ◽  
Small Needle ◽  
Agent Of Change ◽  
Coal Measures

When I started my doctoral research in October 1973 I never imagined that I would spend so much of my career thinking about fire. I had not considered fire as an agent of change on Earth, or that charcoal deposits may preserve its long history on the planet. I had never thought of fire as a preservational mechanism for fossil plants, producing charcoal that would show their anatomy so that they could be identified, and help us to piece together the vegetation that must have clothed the land millions of years ago. In all my years of collecting fossils as a child and student I had never found, or at least noticed, any fossil charcoal. I had wanted to look at the ecology of the plants that were found during the Carboniferous, 300 million years ago. The natural approach was to look at the large fossil plants that could easily be found in rocks such as the Coal Measures that are often found scattered on old coal tips. But many smaller plant fragments are also preserved in the rocks. I started a programme of dissolving the rocks in acids and obtaining residues of the fossil plants that remained. The rocks are made up of minerals that dissolve in different acids from the plant fossils, which are made of organic material. It was hard work, and I spent many hours a day picking through the plant fragment residues, which were about the size of tea leaves, trying to identify what the fragments represented. Incredibly, at that time, few researchers had tried to look at plant fossils in this way. I soon noticed a large number of fragments that looked like charcoal, and examined these with an SEM. Under the SEM the astonishing detail in the charcoalified leaves was revealed (BW Plate 6). The small needle-like leaves had two beautifully preserved rows of stomata. But what kind of plant did they come from? I took the material to Bill Chaloner, who was one of the world’s authorities on the lycopods, one of the most common plants found in the coal measures.

A biostratigraphic method based on a quantification of the characters of Devonian tracheophytes

Paleobiology ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 208-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philippe Gerrienne ◽  
Maurice Streel
Keyword(s):  
Plant Macrofossils ◽  
Individual Plant ◽  
Fossil Plants ◽  
Early Devonian ◽  
Quantification Method ◽  
Palynological Assemblage ◽  
Reference Scale ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Evolutionary Aspects

Biostratigraphic applications of Devonian plant macrofossils are unusual because of the rarity of these fossil plants. Moreover, the taxonomic determination of these plants is too often either arguable or impossible. Here is proposed a biostratigraphic method based on a quantification of individual plant characters and not on determination of whole fossils. The method is the following: (1) each biocharacter found at a given locality receives a score according to whether it is primitive or derived, so that the biocharacter score increases with increasing derivation; (2) the biostratigraphic coefficients of well-dated localities are calculated, the biostratigraphic coefficient of a given plant locality being the mean of all the biocharacter scores of this locality; (3) the scores of these well-dated localities are used to build a reference scale to which localities under investigation will be compared. A detailed example is developed for Early Devonian times. Various plant biocharacters of seven fossiliferous outcrops have been quantified and the subsequent scores of these localities are presented. This example shows that biostratigraphic results obtained by using the quantification method are comparable in precision with dating based on palynological assemblage zones. Evolutionary aspects of the method are also discussed.

VI.—On the So-called “Plant Fossils” from the Silurian of Central Wales

1883 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-34
Author(s):  
A. G. Nathorst
Keyword(s):  
Fossil Plants ◽  
Plant Fossils ◽  
Mode Of Occurrence ◽  
Geological Magazine

In the Geological Magazine, Dec. II. Vol. IX. November, 1882, my esteemed friend, Mr. W. Keeping, describes (pp. 485–491) some markings from the Silurian beds of Central Wales, which he considers to be fossil plants. The description of those markings, however, so far from supporting the correctness of Mr. Keeping's views, seem, on the contrary, to put it quite beyond doubt that the objects referred to are only trails and burrows of Annelids. It is indeed most surprising that Mr. Keeping, although referring to my paper on trails of different animals, etc., seems to have taken no notice whatever of the statements which are there brought forward as to the mode of occurrence and structure of the worm trails. For if this had been done, I think that the objects referred to would never have been described as fossil plants.

scholarly journals IX. On fossil plants, showing structure, from the base of the waverley shale of Kentucky

1914 ◽  
Vol 205 (313-324) ◽  
pp. 315-373 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Black Shale ◽  
Harvard University ◽  
Fossil Plants ◽  
Additional Material ◽  
Lower Carboniferous ◽  
Charles Eastman ◽  
Junior Author ◽  
Fish Remains ◽  
Devonian Age ◽  
The University

A large part of the material upon which the present memoir is based was derived from Prof. Charles Eastman, now of the University of Pittsburg but formerly of the staff of the Agassiz Museum of Harvard University. It was presented by him to the junior author. A considerable amount of additional material, some of it of the greatest interest, including, among other things, a Lepidodendrid cone, was purchased by the junior contributor to the present article, from Mr. Moritz Fischer, of Cincinnati, Ohio, who was associated with Prof. Eastman as a collector in his work on the deposits containing the fossil plants here described. The locality and horizon of the fossil plants under consideration are described as follows by Prof. Eastman in a letter to the junior author: “The collection of fossiliferous nodules, which I turned over to you, was obtained by myself in company with Mr. Moritz Fischer, of Cincinnati, at a locality about one mile west of Junction City in Boyle County, Kentucky, in the spring of 1906. The nodule layer is a well-marked stratum 20 to 24 inches thick, lying at the base of the Waverley (Lower Carboniferous) and immediately above the Genessee Black Shale of Upper Devonian age. The accompanying fish remains are regarded by myself and Dr. Bashford Dean, who have described some of them, as indicating Lower Carboniferous age.”

A quantitative study of changes in dried skim-milk and lactose-casein in the ‘dry’ state during storage

1963 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. L. Richards
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Study ◽  
Protein Complex ◽  
Free Amino ◽  
Skim Milk ◽  
Reducing Power ◽  
Amino Groups ◽  
Complex Change ◽  
Rapid Formation ◽  
Close Relationship

SummaryChanges in dried skim-milk and in lactose-casein in the ‘dry’ state during storage at 45 °C and 75% r.h. have been studied by the determination of free amino-N, ε-amino groups of lysine, galactose, lactulose, tagatose and 1-amino-1-deoxy-2-ketoses, and by the measurement of changes in colour, solubility and ferricyanide reducing power.In both systems there is initially a close relationship between the formation of 1-amino-1-deoxy-2-ketoses and the decrease in free amino-N. This conforms with an Amadori rearrangement of an initially formed lactose-protein complex. Change in colour is rapid only after there has been a rapid formation of 1-amino-1-deoxy-2-ketoses and a corresponding decrease in free amino-N. This conforms with browning being due to a breakdown of the Amadori rearranged complex.It is postulated that galactose and tagatose may be formed by both the basecatalysed degradation of lactose and also by breakdown of the Amadori rearranged lactose-protein complex. Lactulose is postulated to be formed only by base-catalysed degradation of lactose.

scholarly journals New data on the late cretaceous flora of the New Siberia island, New Siberian Islands

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 53-69
Author(s):  
A. B. Herman ◽  
V. V. Kostyleva ◽  
P. A. Nikolskii ◽  
A. E. Basilyan ◽  
A. E. Kotel’nikov
Keyword(s):  
Late Cretaceous ◽  
Taxonomic Diversity ◽  
Time Interval ◽  
Fossil Plants ◽  
New Siberian Islands ◽  
Humid Climate ◽  
Plant Fossils ◽  
Angiosperm Species ◽  
Warm Temperate

New plant fossils collected in 2016 from the Derevyannye Gory Formation on the New Siberia Island are studied. Thirty species of fossil plants are identified and illustrated. They belong to liverworts, ferns, ginkgoaleans, conifers and angiosperms. Sixteen of them have not beed found in the New Siberia Flora before. A new angiosperm species Dalembia (?) gracilis Herman is described. The New Siberia Flora is characterised by a moderately high taxonomic diversity, predominance of conifers and angiosperms with large-leafed platanoids and trochodendroids being the most abundant among angiosperms, by predominance of dentate-margined angiosperms and rarity of plants with entire-margined leaves, and by absence of cycadaleans and bennettitaleans. The flora existed during the Turonian–Coniacian time interval and most probably should be dated as Turonian. Plants of the New Siberia Flora experienced a warm-temperate humid climate with warm summers, mild frost-free winters and insignificant seasonality in precipitation.

Stratigraphy and fossil plants from the Cutler Formation (Late Paleozoic) and their paleoclimatic implications, eastern Paradox Basin, Colorado

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 9-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kendall Grazul ◽  
Jacqueline Huntoon ◽  
Jennifer O’Keefe
Keyword(s):  
Alluvial Fan ◽  
Late Paleozoic ◽  
Fossil Plants ◽  
Fossil Plant ◽  
Living Plant ◽  
Paradox Basin ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Plant Fossils ◽  
Arid Conditions ◽  
Semi Arid

Exposures of the late Paleozoic Cutler Formation, near the town of Gateway, Colorado, have traditionally been interpreted as the product of alluvial-fan deposition along the western flank of the Uncompahgre uplift and within the easternmost portion of the Paradox Basin. The Paradox Basin formed between the western margin of the Uncompahgre uplift, a segment of the Ancestral Rocky Mountains, and the western paleoshoreline of the North American portion of Pangea. This part of Pangea is commonly thought to have experienced semi-arid to arid conditions and warm temperatures during the Pennsylvanian and Permian. We present stratigraphic and fossil plant evidence in this paper to support prior interpretations that the Cutler near Gateway, Colorado, was deposited by alluvial fans that hosted localized wetland areas. Our findings are consistent with the results of prior studies that have suggested the climate in the area was warm, semi-arid, and ice-free at the time the plants described in this paper were living. Plant fossils collected from the Cutler Formation came from two sites in The Palisade Wilderness Study Area (managed by the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management) of western Colorado. The stratigraphic sections at the sites were composed mostly of pebble to cobble conglomerate and sandstone, but the fossil plants were mainly preserved in fine-grained intervals (fine-grained sandstone to siltstone). The preservation of plant fossils in the proximal Cutler Formation is remarkable because the surrounding sections consist mostly of conglomerate and sandstone interpreted as fluvial and debris-flow deposits. The fine-grained strata containing the plant horizons must have been deposited in a wet and protected setting, possibly a spring-fed abandoned channel on the alluvial fan. The plants and their surrounding sediment must have been rapidly buried in order to allow for long-term preservation of the fossils. It seems likely that vegetation was abundant in and adjacent to low-lying wet areas on the fan’s surface, based on the abundance of plant fossils found at the two sites. The fossil plant assemblage includes Calamites, Walchia, and Pecopteris. The flora are interpreted to have lived near the apex of the alluvial-fan system. These fossils suggest that warm and at least seasonally and locally wet conditions existed in the area during the time that the plants were growing. More arid conditions during the late Paleozoic are suggested by the characteristics of some of the time-equivalent and near time-equivalent rocks exposed to the west of the study area in the central Paradox Basin.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document