Late-Cretaceous Palynomorphs

[Peat Burns]

I was going through some of my photo files today and ran across some photos of palynomorphs that I extracted from clay underlying a T. rex skeleton in the Hell Creek of South Dakota several years ago.  I recovered many plant macrofossils as well.

 

My favorite palynomorph recovered is this Wodehousia spinata, characteristic of Late-Cretaceous and early Paleogene time (sorry the photos aren't the best):

 

 

Here's a trilete pteridophyte spore:

 

 

Here are some of the plant macrofossils. 

 

Metasequoia:

 

 

External mold /cast of the cone of Metasequoia:

 

 

Unidentified leaf

 

 

cf. Marmarthia

 

 

 

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Very nice, thanks for sharing. 

The Wodehousia is gorgeous, though it gives me a bit of a headache to look at this photo. 

[Peat Burns]

19 minutes ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

Very nice, thanks for sharing. 

The Wodehousia is gorgeous, though it gives me a bit of a headache to look at this photo. 

Yeah, I had to use oil immersion at 1000x.  Probably should have used a better scope and camera.

[Miocene_Mason]

Very interesting, it’s amazing to me that such fragile things could survive 65 million years in the mud!

[goatinformationist]

You got lucky; photos of me before 6am look even worse.

[Peat Burns]

14 minutes ago, goatinformationist said:

You got lucky; photos of me before 6am look even worse.

 

Hey, I resemble that remark.

[goatinformationist]

Maybe when I hit 60myo I'll look better; it's the gym downstairs.