PLB 407

mass animal extinction, usually marine animals

• Invertebrate
• Vertebrate
• Plants
• Palynology (pollen and spores of land plants)
• Micropaleontology (marine plankton)

• -Index fossils are used to correlate strategraphic levels of rocks from one area to another
• -Good index fossils are:
• 1. common
• 2. distinct morphologically
• 3. have a wide geographic distribution
• 4. have a narrow time distribution

• - Direct fossils are body fossils, typically "hard parts" such as shells and bones
• - Indirect fossils are traces of animals like footprints

Integration of plant, animal, and other biotic evidence along with geological evidence to understand past environments

• - cutin in leaf
• - lignin in wood
• - sporopollenin in spore and pollen walls

mineral patterns that look like fern fossils

• - show external morphology (venation and outer form)
• ...can sometimes show attachments of fruits, leaves, and branches
• ...can show details of flower parts
• - can preserve the cuticle also (waxy covering on leaf)

show outer 3D form, but lack internal structures

shows internal cellular preservation

• - Metamorphic: formed when heat and pressure alter other rocks into other forms (aka granite)
• - Igneous: formed underground as magma, or above ground as lava from volcanic eruptions
• ...ash falls from eruptions can preserve leaf compressions and silica from volcanoes can supersaturate the ground water to permineralize plant tissues
• - Sedimentary: where you find fossils
• ...grain size determines rock type: coarse<conglomerate<sandstone<siltstone

interpret depositional environment based on patterns of rock distribution

places where plants grow prior to fossilization

organic material transported and preserved away from the environment in which it grew originally

organic material fossilized in the same place it grew

lots of volcanic activity can produce massive amounts of silica that gets into the groundwater. The water that has totally soaked the plant tissues then becomes supersaturated or "permineralizes", catching the plant material and trapping it for us like a jello salad

coal is the carbon from fossilized plants. It can be studied by breaking down all the organic material and looking at what is left

amber is fossilized resin that can trap plant and insect material and preserve them

• - Vegetative phase begins with germination, then continues to seedling, and then to mature plant; modular and indeterminate
• - Reproductive phase begins with the flower from the mature plant and creates the seed that germinated to start the vegetative phase.

• Leaf: photosynthesis, sometimes for attraction or modifications
• Stem: support, conduction storage, sometimes photosynthesis
• Root: anchorage, conduction storage
• Node: the point where the stem branches off to form a leaf
• Internode: empty stem between the nodes
• Indeterminate growth: growth that is not terminated, as opposed to growth that is terminated when a structure has been formed
• Axillary bud: an embryonic shoot which lies at the junction at the stem and petiole of a plant

• - already established in the embryo
• - Shoot apical meristem: stem tip

• Stem: indeterminate, radially symmetric, phototrophic, nodes and internodes, derived from embryonic shoot apex or axillary buds
• Leaf: bilaterally symmetric, determinate, produced at nodes, ephemeral
• Root: indeterminate, radially symmetric, geotropic, lack nodes and internodes, produce a root cap

• radial symmetry is like a starfish (or flower)
• bilateral symmetry is like a butterfly

located in the center of the stem and roots, surrounded by xylem

the outer layer of the stem or root bounded by epidermis on outside and endodermis on inside

• the xylem and phloem
• xylem: transports water and some nutrients
• phloem: carried nutrients

leaves grow in a particular order

palisade mesophyll contains chloroplasts, spongy mesopyll allows passage of gases

the center of the leaf containing the vascular tissue

pores found in the leaf and stem epidermis used for gas exchange

Changes from an indeterminate apical meristem to a determinate floral apex

• Stigma: composed of a filament that catches pollen
• Style: structure through which the pollen tubes grow to get to the ovary
• Ovary: encloses the ovules
• Ovule: protective embryo covering; becomes the fruit
• Pistil: the ovule producing part of a flower
• Gynoecium: modified leaves or stems present on a gametophyte shoot; the innermost whorl of structures in a flower
• Stamen: pollen bearing parts of the flower (the filament and the anther that sits on top of it, collectively)
• Anther: contains pollen
• Filament: the stalk that the anther sits on top of
• Pollen: the sperm cells
• Sepals: enclose and protect the flower when in bud form
• Petals: attracts pollinators based on its bright color
• Receptacle: where the parts of the flower attach to the stalk

The ovary and other structures becomes the fruit, and the embryo is in the seed

pollen contains sperm, pollen tube develops and carried sperm to egg.

• pollen is created with sperm via meiosis
• embryo sac with egg is created via meiosis