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The water in the fossil itself also needs to be replaced. As soon as the slab bearing the fossil is worked free from the rock, it is submerged in water to stop it from cracking. This involves packing it in plastic and sometimes wet newspaper. While in the wet state, it is cleaned up and all preparation needed for the transfer conducted. [15]
Plant macrofossils include leaf, needle, cone, and stem debris; and can be used to identify types of plants formerly growing in the area. Such botanical macrofossil data provide a valuable complement to pollen and faunal data that can be used to reconstruct the prehistoric terrestrial environment.
Plant fossils can be preserved in a variety of ways, each of which can give different types of information about the original parent plant. These modes of preservation may be summarised in a paleobotanical context as follows. Adpressions (compressions – impressions). These are the most commonly found type of plant fossil.
The horizons of fossil soils typically are sharply defined only in the top layers, unless some of the parent material has not been obliterated by soil formation. The kinds of horizons in fossil soils are generally the same as those found in present-day soils, allowing easy classification in modern taxonomy of all but the oldest soils.
The International Fossil Plant Names Index (acronym IFPNI) is an online database of paleobotany.The site was launched in May 2014 to list the scientific names of fossil plants, algae, fungi, allied prokaryotic forms (formerly treated as algae and Cyanophyceae in particular), algal-related protists and microfossils published using binomial nomenclature.
Bringing Fossils to Life: An Introduction to Paleobiology. New York: McGraw Hill. ISBN 0-07-366170-8 and ISBN 978-0-07-366170-4. An acclaimed book for the novice fossil-hunter and young adults. Mark Ridley, ed. (2004). Evolution. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-926794-4 and ISBN 978-1-4051-0345-9. An anthology of analytical ...
Index fossils (also known as guide fossils, indicator fossils, or dating fossils) are the fossilized remains or traces of particular plants or animals that are characteristic of a particular span of geologic time or environment, and can be used to identify and date the containing rocks. To be practical, index fossils must have a limited ...
Cuticle analysis, also known as fossil cuticle analysis and cuticular analysis, is an archaeobotanical method that uses plant cuticles to reconstruct the vegetation of past grassy environments. Cuticles comprise the protective layer of the skin, or epidermis , of leaves and blades of grass.