Pristine Early Eocene Wood Buried Deeply in Kimberlite from Northern Canada
We report exceptional preservation of fossil wood buried deeply in a kimberlite pipe that intruded northwestern Canada’s Slave Province 53.3±0.6 million years ago (Ma), revealed during excavation of diamond source rock. The wood originated from forest surrounding the eruption zone and collapsed into...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:3446892 2023-05-15T18:28:21+02:00 Pristine Early Eocene Wood Buried Deeply in Kimberlite from Northern Canada Wolfe, Alexander P. Csank, Adam Z. Reyes, Alberto V. McKellar, Ryan C. Tappert, Ralf Muehlenbachs, Karlis 2012-09-19 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3446892 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23029080 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0045537 en eng Public Library of Science http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3446892 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23029080 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0045537 This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. CC-BY Research Article Text 2012 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0045537 2013-09-04T13:09:59Z We report exceptional preservation of fossil wood buried deeply in a kimberlite pipe that intruded northwestern Canada’s Slave Province 53.3±0.6 million years ago (Ma), revealed during excavation of diamond source rock. The wood originated from forest surrounding the eruption zone and collapsed into the diatreme before resettling in volcaniclastic kimberlite to depths >300 m, where it was mummified in a sterile environment. Anatomy of the unpermineralized wood permits conclusive identification to the genus Metasequoia (Cupressaceae). The wood yields genuine cellulose and occluded amber, both of which have been characterized spectroscopically and isotopically. From cellulose δ18O and δ2H measurements, we infer that Early Eocene paleoclimates in the western Canadian subarctic were 12–17°C warmer and four times wetter than present. Canadian kimberlites offer Lagerstätte-quality preservation of wood from a region with limited alternate sources of paleobotanical information. Text Subarctic PubMed Central (PMC) Canada PLoS ONE 7 9 e45537 |
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English |
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Research Article |
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Research Article Wolfe, Alexander P. Csank, Adam Z. Reyes, Alberto V. McKellar, Ryan C. Tappert, Ralf Muehlenbachs, Karlis Pristine Early Eocene Wood Buried Deeply in Kimberlite from Northern Canada |
topic_facet |
Research Article |
description |
We report exceptional preservation of fossil wood buried deeply in a kimberlite pipe that intruded northwestern Canada’s Slave Province 53.3±0.6 million years ago (Ma), revealed during excavation of diamond source rock. The wood originated from forest surrounding the eruption zone and collapsed into the diatreme before resettling in volcaniclastic kimberlite to depths >300 m, where it was mummified in a sterile environment. Anatomy of the unpermineralized wood permits conclusive identification to the genus Metasequoia (Cupressaceae). The wood yields genuine cellulose and occluded amber, both of which have been characterized spectroscopically and isotopically. From cellulose δ18O and δ2H measurements, we infer that Early Eocene paleoclimates in the western Canadian subarctic were 12–17°C warmer and four times wetter than present. Canadian kimberlites offer Lagerstätte-quality preservation of wood from a region with limited alternate sources of paleobotanical information. |
format |
Text |
author |
Wolfe, Alexander P. Csank, Adam Z. Reyes, Alberto V. McKellar, Ryan C. Tappert, Ralf Muehlenbachs, Karlis |
author_facet |
Wolfe, Alexander P. Csank, Adam Z. Reyes, Alberto V. McKellar, Ryan C. Tappert, Ralf Muehlenbachs, Karlis |
author_sort |
Wolfe, Alexander P. |
title |
Pristine Early Eocene Wood Buried Deeply in Kimberlite from Northern Canada |
title_short |
Pristine Early Eocene Wood Buried Deeply in Kimberlite from Northern Canada |
title_full |
Pristine Early Eocene Wood Buried Deeply in Kimberlite from Northern Canada |
title_fullStr |
Pristine Early Eocene Wood Buried Deeply in Kimberlite from Northern Canada |
title_full_unstemmed |
Pristine Early Eocene Wood Buried Deeply in Kimberlite from Northern Canada |
title_sort |
pristine early eocene wood buried deeply in kimberlite from northern canada |
publisher |
Public Library of Science |
publishDate |
2012 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3446892 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23029080 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0045537 |
geographic |
Canada |
geographic_facet |
Canada |
genre |
Subarctic |
genre_facet |
Subarctic |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3446892 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23029080 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0045537 |
op_rights |
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0045537 |
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PLoS ONE |
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7 |
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9 |
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e45537 |
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