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Forest Vines to Snow Tussocks: The Story of New Zealand Plants

How Do Plants Become Fossils?

How Do Plants Become Fossils?

Macrofossils

First of all it is usually detached bits of plants rather than whole plants that become fossils, and this of course makes identification more difficult. Of macrofossils (visible to the naked eye) the most common are leaves, which often detach cleanly from stems along a special layer of weak cells, then twigs, and, less commonly, cones of conifers and fruits and seeds of flowering plants. Unfortunately flowers, which are the most reliable means of identification, are mostly soft tissued and often decay before they can become fossils.

Fossilisation frequently takes place at sites in the lowlands where there is deposition of the products of the weathering and erosion of rocks — clay, silt, sand, and so on. Such sites are the estuaries and deltas of rivers, river flood plains, ponds and lakes. Plant parts fall, blow page 237or are washed into these bodies of water, sink to the bottom and become buried under layers of sediment. As the sediments become deeper and deeper the lower layers are compressed by the weight of those above, they undergo physical and chemical changes and eventually become solid rock. Any fossils also become greatly compressed and so altered that often all that is left is a carbonaceous film with no cell structure at all. Such fossils are termed compressions (Fig. 121) and can be revealed by splitting sedimentary rocks along their bedding planes. Sometimes there is no original or even substituted plant material remaining, but there may still be an imprint of the plant part. Such fossil
Figure 121 (left) Fossil leaf compression about 7x4 cm, of the extinct Nothofagus oliveri, from Nuggety creek, near Murchison. Mid-Miocene age. Photo: J. E. Casey.

Figure 121 (left) Fossil leaf compression about 7x4 cm, of the extinct Nothofagus oliveri, from Nuggety creek, near Murchison. Mid-Miocene age. Photo: J. E. Casey.

Figure 122 (above) Pollen of zygoynum baillonii of New Caledonia. Zygogynum belongs to the primitive family Winteraceae and at the present day is restricted to New Caledonia. The distincative fossil pollen of this or a related genus has been found in New Zelands, in a fossil assemblage of Middle Pliocene Age. Photo: F. B. Sampson.

Figure 122 (above) Pollen of zygoynum baillonii of New Caledonia. Zygogynum belongs to the primitive family Winteraceae and at the present day is restricted to New Caledonia. The distincative fossil pollen of this or a related genus has been found in New Zelands, in a fossil assemblage of Middle Pliocene Age. Photo: F. B. Sampson.

page 238imprints are known as impressions. Compressions and impressions, particularly of leaves, can reveal a great deal — shape, margin form and sometimes complete detail of vein systems. If the resistant waxy surface layers of leaves (known as cuticles) are preserved, the impressions on them of long gone epidermal cells can be studied and their distinctive shapes and arrangements determined. Sometimes with three dimensional plant parts, such as portions of trunks or branches, the specimen may rot away completely, while the surrounding sediment solidifies, leaving a cavity lined with an impression of its surface. If the cavity later becomes filled with sediment, this in time solidifies into a cast or replica of the original.

The slow but steady accumulation of organic material in swamps and bogs can also lead to the formation of fossils as the conditions at such sites are often acidic and inhibit decay organisms. The plant remains, which form peat below the living plants at the surface, are termed subfossils. If peat becomes deeply buried, particularly under layers of inorganic sediments, pressure and heat gradually convert it into coal and the plant parts steadily lose their structure until none remains in the highest grade coals.

Plants may also be fossilised in fine textured volcanic ash redistributed by the heavy rain often associated with eruptions.

Sometimes the complete cellular structure of fossils is preserved. This happens when plant material, most often in swamps, becomes impregnated and replaced by silicates (sometimes near silica springs), carbonates and similar compounds in solution. After such an event the replaced plant material becomes resistant to physical and chemical change and the preservation of cells and sometimes cell contents can be remarkably good even in fossils hundreds of millions of years old. By special techniques thin sections can be made of these well preserved fossils and cell structure can be studied in detail.

Microfossils

These are principally the spores of ferns, bryophytes and other groups and the pollen grains (Fig. 122) of conifers and flowering plants. They are useful in interpreting past floras because of their great resistance to decay (with some exceptions), and because of a number of distinctive and constant characteristics which often enable them to be identified to family, genus or, less often, species. The resistance to decay derives page 239from a wax-like compound in the cell walls. The features useful in identification are the shape of the grain (spherical, triangular, bean-like etc); the number, form and arrangement of germination pores; the structure of the wall; and the sometimes intricate pattern of sculpturing on the surface of the spore or grain.

Some plants are more likely to be fossilised than others. Lowland plants are better represented than alpine plants because it is in the lowlands that deposition is prevalent. The fossilisation process may begin in suitable alpine sites such as bogs and ponds, but it is likely to be interrupted by erosion at an early stage. Firm or even hard textured plant parts make better fossils than delicate parts that tend to shred or decay rapidly. Plant parts which separate readily, such as leaves with abscission layers, are more common as fossils than parts which normally remain attached and slowly decay. Spores and pollen which are wind dispersed are produced in great quantities and spread for great distances, so are often over-represented in the fossil record by comparison with bird, water or insect-pollinated species.