1670,1886

Palynology

• The study of strewn particles
• the dust of plants
• the dust of centuries.
• Nehemiah Grew discovered that
• the pollen of a plant, its size and shape,
• is characteristic of the plant
• and necessary for its reproduction.
• Robert Kidston
• studied fossil spores
• related them to living species
• and used them to correlate coal seams.

Fossil palynology

• Archean sedimentary rock
• Devonian and Carboniferous coal seams
• Cenozoic oceanic sediments
• Neoproterozoic deposits
• dinocysts, acritarchs
• spores, pollen, fungi
• chitinozoans, foraminifera
• scolecodonts, arthropod bodyparts

Politics

• It would be unkind to compare
• certain politicians with fossils.
• Unlike fossils, they live, they breathe,
• and they threaten others.
• Putting them under a microscope,
• we discover more about ourselves.