Betula leaves and reproductive structures from the Middle Eocene of British Columbia, Canada

1987 ◽  
Vol 65 (12) ◽  
pp. 2490-2500 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter R. Crane ◽  
Ruth A. Stockey

Fossil angiosperm leaves from the Middle Eocene Allenby Formation, at One Mile Creek near Princeton, southern British Columbia, are described and assigned to Betula leopoldae Wolfe & Wehr. Morphological details of associated infructescences, fruits, staminate inflorescences, and pollen are also very similar to those of extant Betula. Based on association evidence and independently determined systematic relationships, we suggest that the vegetative and reproductive structures were produced by a single fossil species. Combined information from all the organs available suggests that this Eocene Betula is most closely related to species in section Eubetula, subsection Costatae of the extant genus. Material from One Mile Creek constitutes the earliest fully documented record of the genus Betula based on both vegetative and reproductive structures. In the context of the fossil history of the Betulaceae as a whole, it indicates that the two extant genera of the Betuleae, Alnus and Betula, were clearly differentiated by the Middle Eocene.


1990 ◽  
Vol 68 (6) ◽  
pp. 1327-1339 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergio R. S. Cevallos-Ferriz ◽  
Ruth A. Stockey

One wood block and many small twigs (up to 1.3 cm diam.) with little secondary growth and showing magnoliaceous characters were identified from the Princeton chert locality (Middle Eocene) of British Columbia, Canada. Specimens were studied with a modified cellulose acetate peel technique and hydrofluoric acid. Well-preserved primary tissues include a chambered pith that distinguishes these twigs from other woods in the chert. Secondary xylem has solitary vessels, radial multiples, and clusters, scalariform perforation plates with 8–27 bars, scalariform, transitional, and opposite intervascular pitting, and tyloses. Imperforate tracheary elements with circular bordered pits, heterocellular and homocellular rays, and marginal parenchyma characterize the twigs. Secondary phloem has dilated rays, alternating bands of fibers and thin-walled cells, and sclerified ray and axial cells. In older wood, opposite intervascular pitting and homocellular rays, suggest affinities with Liriodendron L.; however, the presence of opposite, scalariform, and transitional intervascular pitting and secondary phloem structure necessitate its inclusion in Liriodendroxylon Prakash et al. Liriodendroxylon princetonensis Cevallos-Ferriz et Stockey sp.nov. is distinguished from other species in this genus by the presence of homocellular rays, scalariform intervascular pitting, and well-preserved extraxylary tissues that are unknown for the other fossil species. Liriodendroxylon princetonensis adds to the diversity of extinct magnoliaceous plants during the Eocene and represents the oldest known species of this genus. These plants were probably part of the surrounding forest vegetation in the Princeton basin. Like most extant Magnoliales, L. princetonensis probably lived under subtropical to warm-temperate, moist conditions. Key words: Magnoliaceae, Liriodendroxylon, fossil woods, Eocene.



2003 ◽  
Vol 135 (5) ◽  
pp. 637-653 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vladimir N. Makarkin ◽  
S. Bruce Archibald ◽  
John D. Oswald

AbstractTwo Early Eocene hemerobiid species from the Okanagan Highland deposits of western North America are described: Wesmaelius mathewesisp. nov. (Quilchena, British Columbia, Canada) and Cretomerobius wehrisp. nov. (Republic, Washington, United States of America.). A poorly preserved specimen, possibly Hemerobiidae (Driftwood Canyon, British Columbia, Canada) is discussed. The systematic position of the genus Cretomerobius within the Hemerobiidae is unclear, but it appears to belong within (or possibly as the sister group to) the poorly differentiated Drepanacrinae–Megalominae–Drepanepteryginae grade of subfamilies. Wesmaelius mathewesi is the first fossil species to be assigned, although with some uncertainty, to this otherwise speciose and widely distributed extant genus. It also represents the oldest known material of the subfamily Hemerobiinae. Meso hemerobius jeholensis Ping is removed from the Hemerobiidae and treated as Neuroptera incertae sedis.



2017 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 1-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Murphey ◽  
K.E. Townsend ◽  
Anthony Friscia ◽  
James Westgate ◽  
Emmett Evanoff ◽  
...  

The Bridger Formation is restricted to the Green River Basin in southwest Wyoming, and the Uinta and Duchesne River Formations are located in the Uinta Basin in Utah. These three rock units and their diverse fossil assemblages are of great scientific importance and historic interest to vertebrate paleontologists. Notably, they are also the stratotypes from oldest to youngest for the three middle Eocene North American Land Mammal Ages—the Bridgerian, Uintan, and Duchesnean. The fossils and sediments of these formations provide a critically important record of biotic, environmental, and climatic history spanning approximately 10 million years (49 to 39 Ma). This article provides a detailed field excursion through portions of the Green River and Uinta Basins that focuses on locations of geologic, paleontologic, and historical interest. In support of the field excursion, we also provide a review of current knowledge of these formations with emphasis on lithostratigraphy, biochronology, depositional, and paleoenvironmental history, and the history of scientific exploration.





1993 ◽  
Vol 78 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 277-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergio R.S. Cevallos-Ferriz ◽  
Diane M. Erwin ◽  
Ruth A. Stockey


1974 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 409-421 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marian Kuc

New fossil taxa (Ditrichites fylesi, Muscites maycocki, M. ritchiei, Palaeohypnum jovet-asti and P. steerei); unnamed moss and moss-like fossils, detrital fragments of various plant tissues, and paleobotanical evidence of the bisaccate zone are described from the Middle Eocene Allenby Formation near Princeton, British Columbia. These remains occur in laminated, tuffaceous, silty and pyroclastic shale, deposited under lacustrine conditions.Detailed examination of the various laminae indicates that beds of white colour and composed of coarser silt grains are poor in fossils and could be related to periods of decreasing bioproduction; less silty and darker coloured beds are rich in macro- and microfossils and could be related to periods of extensive bioproduction. The rock features, lamination, and distribution of macrofossils indicate the slow and undisturbed accumulation of plant remains on a lake bottom.



1992 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Beaudoin ◽  
J. C. Roddick ◽  
D. F. Sangster

The Ag–Pb–Zn–Au vein and replacement deposits of the Kokanee Range, southeastern British Columbia, are hosted by the Middle Jurassic Nelson batholith and surrounding Cambrian to Triassic metasedimentary rocks in the hanging wall of the transcrustal Slocan Lake Fault, Field relations indicate that mineralization is younger than the Nelson batholith and a Middle Jurassic foliation in the Ainsworth area but coeval or older than Eocene unroofing of the Valhalla metamorphic core complex in the footwall of the Slocan Lake Fault. Lamprophyre and gabbro dykes are broadly coeval with mineralization and have biotite and hornblende K–Ar ages defining a short-lived Middle Eocene alkaline magmatic event between 52 and 40 Ma. An older, Early Cretaceous alkaline magmatic event (141 – 129 Ma) is possible but incompletely documented.K–Ar and step-heating 40Ar/39Ar analyses on hydrothermal vein and alteration muscovite indicate that hydrothermal fluids were precipitating vein and replacement deposits 58–59 Ma ago. Crosscutting relationships with lamprophyre dykes indicate the Kokanee Range hydrothermal system lasted for more than 15 Ma. Eocene crustal extension resulted in a high heat flow and structures which were probably responsible for hydrothermal fluid movement and flow paths.A 100 Ma time interval is documented between batholith emplacement and spatially associated mineralization, ruling out any genetic link between the two. Similar large age differences between granite intrusion and peripheral mineralization have recently been documented for two world-sea le Ag–Pb–Zn vein districts, which suggest that spatial association between granite and Ag–Pb–Zn mineralization is not sufficient to infer a genetic link.



2017 ◽  
Vol 54 (11) ◽  
pp. 1153-1164 ◽  
Author(s):  
B.H. Luckman ◽  
M.H. Masiokas ◽  
K. Nicolussi

As glaciers in the Canadian Rockies recede, glacier forefields continue to yield subfossil wood from sites overridden by these glaciers during the Holocene. Robson Glacier in British Columbia formerly extended below tree line, and recession over the last century has progressively revealed a number of buried forest sites that are providing one of the more complete records of glacier history in the Canadian Rockies during the latter half of the Holocene. The glacier was advancing ca. 5.5 km upvalley of the Little Ice Age terminus ca. 5.26 cal ka BP, at sites ca. 2 km upvalley ca. 4.02 cal ka BP and ca. 3.55 cal ka BP, and 0.5–1 km upvalley between 1140 and 1350 A.D. There is also limited evidence based on detrital wood of an additional period of glacier advance ca. 3.24 cal ka BP. This record is more similar to glacier histories further west in British Columbia than elsewhere in the Rockies and provides the first evidence for a post-Hypsithermal glacier advance at ca. 5.26 cal ka BP in the Rockies. The utilization of the wiggle-matching approach using multiple 14C dates from sample locations determined by dendrochronological analyses enabled the recognition of 14C outliers and an increase in the precision and accuracy of the dating of glacier advances.



Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document