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Sticks and Mud, Fruits and Nuts, Leaves and Climate: Plant Taphonomy Comes of Age

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It's conceivable that just about every natural scientist first started out as a plant taphonomist. As far-fetched as this statement seems, think back to when you were a child. Didn't you ever toss a handful of maple fruits into the air to see them flutter down, whipping around like little helicopters? Or blow hard at a dandelion to see how long the seeds floated in the air? You must have thrown leaves or sticks into a stream to see them swept away by the current. Even Winnie-the-Pooh undertook a series of taphonomic experiments on the transport of detached plant parts, throwing fir cones and Poohsticks, one after another, from an elevated structure oriented perpendicular to flow into a low-energy fluvial system to observe empirically which plant clast passed under the bridge first (Milne, 1926).

At some point, however, serious scientists feel compelled to put their childhood games aside, but this is exactly when plant taphonomists become engaged intellectually. This is because most plant taphonomists are paleobotanists, and one of the most basic questions in studying any fossil flora is: How faithfully does my assemblage represent the ancient vegetation? Are there biases favoring the preservation of certain species or plant organs over others? Will my Poohstick beat your fir cone to the other side of the bridge?

There are several approaches to answering questions in plant taphonomy. The first is to do as Winnie did and look at patterns in the transport, sorting, settling, and preservation of various plant parts in modern depositional systems. These actualistic studies, also called actuopaleobotany, are fundamental to elucidating the taphonomic filters that act upon plant material. Another approach is through laboratory experimentation. Unlike animals, plants readily lend their organs—leaves, wood, fruits, and seeds—to testing. It was in the 1980s, for example, when basic . . . [Full Text of this Article]