A Flint Coconut From The Wiltshire Upper Chalk Of The Late Cretaceous

[Terence Meaden]

The flint coconut weighs 836g, and is 127mm long. It has a plumule. In the Late Cretaceous around 90 to 85 million years ago it died and sank into the chalk coccolith matrix. Subsequently, after rotting away, the void was filled with the gelatinous silica substance that turned into flint. The coconut is of a variety known in the tropics today. Marine flora are occasionally found in flint, but a nut from a terrestrial tree could be rare. Are other examples known at all?

​I have two more finds from this same place to introduce later.

[Kosmoceras]

Welcome to the forum. I look forward to seeing your other specimens, but alas this one is not a fossil coconut.

Regards,

[glu]

It looks more like a flint pebble or a sponge

[Auspex]

Welcome to the Forum

It is very likely to be a fossil sponge in flint.

[Terence Meaden]

Without comment, I showed this flint to a man born in Sri Lanka. He recognised it as the smaller of the four varieties of coconut known to him--a slightly flattish kind of coconut. Please pay attention to the plumule on the left hand side of this picture.

[Kosmoceras]

Flint has a tendency to take the form of a wide range of different objects; however, more often than not it is the human mind associating the different shapes with familiar objects. This is not a coconut. It could be a sponge, but we would need some more photos to be assured.

[TqB]

I believe Auspex has it.

[Terence Meaden]

I take your point of course, but there is the undeniable presence of the plumule. I'll try to find a better photograph or I'll take another tomorrow. Till later.

[Terence Meaden]

Here is another photograph. The plumule is clearly shown.

 

 

 

[Kosmoceras]

Can you post a photo with the angle going down into the "plumule"? Cheers

[Auspex]

This one is similar: LINK

[Doctor Mud]

Miocene fossil coconut from New Zealand for comparison.

Note the distinctive germination pores (the three holes) characteristic of coconuts.

Edited September 5, 2015 by Doctor Mud

[Terence Meaden]

Answering the question raised by Kosmoceras about my coconut with plumule, I'll take a new photograph tomorrow to show you.

[Fossildude19]

The oldest fossils of modern coconuts come from the Eocene period, from around 37 to 55 million years ago were found in Australia and India.

LINK.

Out of curiosity,... was the Sri Lankan a paleobotanist?

Unless it was studied by one, and pronounced to be so, the most you can say about it is that it is a flint nodule that looks similar to a type of coconut.

I am NOT a paleobotanist,... however, with my limited knowledge of fossils,... I believe this is a flint nodule, quite probably a sponge.

I would respectfully suggest that you take it to the nearest museum, and have a resident paleontologist have a look at your item.

Perhaps with it in hand the paleontologist can give you a definitive ID, either one way, or another.

Kind regards,

EDIT: It is an interesting item. Thanks for posting it, and Welcome to the Forum.

Please let us know what the paleontologist says. We would love to hear back from you.

Edited September 5, 2015 by Fossildude19

[piranha]

The feature you keep referring to as the 'plumule', is actually the osculum of a sponge. There are no fossil coconuts from the UK!

[piranha]

For those interested, here is a summary of the fossil record of coconuts. The UK has no recorded occurrences.
 

excerpted from:
 

Gunn, B.F. (2004)
The phylogeny of the Cocoeae (Arecaceae) with emphasis on Cocos nucifera.
Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden, 91(3):505-522
 

A fossil of middle Eocene age, Astrocaryum olssoni was discovered by A. Olsson in Negritos in northwestern Peru. These calcified asymmetrical nuts range from 3.75 to 5.25 cm in length and 2.5 to 3.75 cm in diameter and have a fibrous outer layer, an inner layer 2-3 mm thick, and an interior filled with structureless calcified material (Berry,1926a). Other fossil endocarps aged between 12 and 45 Ma have been found in Boulder Hill, Otago, and Wharekuri, Canterbury, New Zealand; they are 3.5-12 cm long and have distinctive Cocoeae pores (Campbell et al., 2000). Berry (1926b) and Couper (1952) reported Cocos-like fossils from Cooper's Beach, Mangonui Auckland New Zealand, that are from the Miocene period. The endocarps of the fossil Cocos zeylandica (15-12 mya) resemble closely those of the extant Parajubaea torallyi (Campbell et al., 2000). Fliche (1896) described a fossil fruit named Cocopsis from the Argonne of France of Miocene age.

 

Fossil Cocos fruit from Chinchilla Sand, Queensland (Australia) of the latest Pliocene (2 mya), most resembles the extant Cocos nucifera (Rigby,1995). The silicified fruit (10 cm long x 9.5 cm max. diam.) with three pores was also associated with other silicified palmwood and megafauna bones. Kaul (1951) recorded Cocos sahni embedded in diatomous deposits from the early Tertiary (Eocene) in the mines at Kapurdi, Western Rajasthan, India. Patil and Upadhye (1984) described a petrified fruit of Cocos intertrappeansis from the Tertiary of Mohgaonkalan, Madhya Pradesh. Tripathi et al. (1999) illustrated a fossil fruit very similar to Cocos nucifera from the Tertiary of Amarkantak, Madhya Pradesh. It is much larger than the others from India, measuring 13 x 10 x 6 cm with a thin epicarp, wide and fibrous mesocarp, and well-developed hardened endocarp. The now extinct Paschalococos disperta from Easter Island was described by Dransfield et al. (1984). Its fruits are are very similar to those of the extant Jubaea chilensis from Chile.
 

At circa Eocene (55-37 mya) fossil Cocoeae fruits were present in South America, New Zealand, and India; Miocene (22-5 mya) endocarps have been found in New Zealand and Africa, Pliocene (5-2 mya) fruits in Australia and India, and recent partial endocarps (800 years old) on Easter Island. By the Eocene Cococeae were already in existence, and therefore probably arose as a lineage sometime earlier, quite possibily the late Paleogene (65-60 mya) since palms were already well diversified as evidenced by the fossil records (Raven & Axelrod,1974; Muller,1979; McLoughlin, 2001).

 

As South America and Africa had been separated by then, ca. 95-100 mya (Coldblatt,1993: 23), it is quite possible that Jubaeopsis arrived in Africa by long-distance dispersal. The fruit (24 cm long) looks like a miniature coconut and possesses a thin fibrous mesocarp covering a hard inner endocarp. It is restricted near the estuarine banks of the Metentu, Msikaba, and Mzinlaua Rivers of the eastern coast of South Africa (Tuley, 1995). The distance between the southern tip of South America and that of South Africa was not great during the Eocene (Coldblatt,1993), and the ocean currents were moving westward (Axelrod & Raven, 1978).
 

Within the Cocos alliance, the age of the node (chronogram, not shown) subtending Parajubaeais at least 29.87-29.44 million years, and the node closest to it subtending the crown group of Cocos nucifera is aged at 22.20-26.84 million years (see Table 2). Thus the minimum age of divergence of Parajubaea and Cocos nucifera is approximately 23 million years. This finding suggests that the coconut belongs to an ancient lineage with its wild progenitors occurring in the Neotropics, and it may be possible that Cocos nucifera is the only extant species of this lineage. Rigby (1995) reported a Cocos nucifera fossil in Chincilla Sand, Queensland (Australia), of Pliocene age (2 mya). This large fossil Cocos has the three pores at one end distinctive of the cocosoid palms. This also eliminates any action of humans in the original distribution of Cocos nucifera, although the dispersal of it in the Pacific in recent times was partly the responsibility of humans. At the time of divergence of the putative progenitors of the Cocos nucifera, separation of South America from West Antarctica had already taken place (30 mya) as the Powell Basin opened up the Scotia Sea to create the Drake Passage (Hallam, 1981). The geological ages of the Cocoeae endocarp fossils found in New Zealand fall into two groups-Eocene and Miocene. The Eocene group found on the eastern side of the South Island is postulated here to have arrived from South America via the Antarctic land bridge, but the Miocene group found on the northern shores of the North Island persisted till much later when New Zealand moved northward resulting in subtropical climates in the North Island during the Miocene. The emergence of volcanic archipelagos to the north enabled the exchange of subtropical taxa to and from New Zealand (Raven & Axelrod, 1972).
 

The early lineage of Cocos nucifer most likely possessed some means of water dispersal. The fruit of Cocos nucifer differs most prominently from those of other Cocoeae in its large size, thick layer of fibrous mesocarp, and its large endocarp with a huge cavity lined with a layer of hard endosperm and filled with liquid endosperm. This adaptation for floating and the enclosed vessel protecting the developing embryo would probably enable it to cross ocean barriers and establish successfully. Edmonson (1941) suggested that the coconut can float in the ocean for up to three months and still be viable.
 

It may be hypothesized that Cocoeae may have originated in South America during the Paleogene, diversified and spread eastward to Africa, Madagascar, and India and southward to Australasia and New Zealand through the western Antarctic corridor (till the Oligocene). The putative progenitors of the coconut were from South America and became widely distributed in the Old World by long-distance water dispersal. The Deccan Traps of India have a well-studied paleobotanical flora (Prakash, 1958) and show affinities of those of the Gondwanan continents. It is postulated that Cocoeae migrated to India from Madagascar after the divergence of the basal clade via long-distance dispersal as the fossil endocarps found in India were of lower Eocene age, when India had already separated from Madagascar. These fossils were described as having fibrousm esocarps ( see Patil & Upadhye, 1984, and Tripathi et al., 1999).

 

[JohnJ]

Terence, what makes you think this is a coconut? With all due respect, it looks like a typical flint nodule. Shape alone does not necessarily distinguish a stone as a fossil.

That you found it at a prehistoric habitation site is not surprising; it was likely gathered as raw material to knap into tools or points.

[jpc]

A fossil coconut would preserve the three filled in holes on one end. Your friend in Sri Lanka would know to look for these because of the three, one is softer than the other two. This is the one you pierce to get the juice out. Does youres have the three holes

[RJB]

A most interesting thread!

RB

[Terence Meaden]

Many thanks to everyone who has corresponded on this matter. There will be a bit more discussion because eventually I shall find a fossil expert near enough to my home (maybe Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford). I shall now add 4 photographs that I took today to show the proposed radicle from different directions. [i wrote plumule above, when I should have written radicle because the radicle always appears from a seed before the plumule].

Of course, if there were no coconuts in the Cretaceous, then that's that. Are we sure about this? I'll look further into this later. Meanwhile here come the photographs. Two of the suggested three filled-in hollows are present. A third could be concealed beneath a flinty-calcareous layer that covers part of the exterior.

I can make a further point. Whatever created the void that came to be filled by the gelatinous siliceous substance that turned into flint, what gets created is a mould-type surface that imitates, in best conditions, the outside of the original object. During the longtime millions-of-years of flint formation some distortion may be expected---and this point will apply to the proposed crocodilian flint too (of which I took more pictures today).

[Kosmoceras]

Yeah, this is without doubt a sponge.

[squali]

That is a very neat fossil. I would be thrilled to find a flint sponge.