45mn-yr-old pollen shows Florida is 10 to 15mn yrs older than thought
March 7th, 2011 - 3:02 pm ICT by ANIWashington, Mar 7 (ANI): A new study of 45-million-year-old pollen from Pine Island west of Fort Myers has suggested that Florida could be 10 million to 15 million years older than previously believed.
The University of Florida study has opened the possibility for researchers to explore the existence of land animals at that time, including their adaptation, evolution and dispersal until the present, reports the Science Daily.
David Jarzen, a research scientist at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus, determined sediment collected from a deep injection well contained local, land-based pollen, disproving the popular belief Florida was underwater 45 million years ago during the early Eocene.
“When I got the sample, I could actually break it apart with my fingers. It wasn’t just land, it was low-lying land with boggy conditions and near shore because it showed marine influence,” he said.
The sample of dark gray lignitic clay and limestone contained pollen from 17 different flowering plants, representing the earliest report of land vegetation to date.
It was collected in 2004 by study co-author Curtis Klug, a hydrogeologist with Cardno Entrix, a Fort Myers-based natural resource management and environmental consulting company.
“As we’re drilling through the rock and the cuttings come to the surface, we collect them, examine them, and determine the type of rock and its estimated age. As we were drilling, we did go through several lignites, but this was one of the thickest ones we found in this particular well,” said Klug.
The study has been published in the journal Palynology. (ANI)
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