Natural Histories: An illustrated guide to fossil pollen and spores preserved in swamps and mires of the Southern Highlands, NSW

Abstract

The shape of the land the plants that grow upon it our own activities all reflect events that happened hundreds to hundreds of millions of years ago. This (our) Past is recorded in many ways - by written records, in unwritten records such as the items we make then lose or throw away as rubbish and by natural records such as macrofossils visible to the naked eye and microfossils visible only under the microscope. Some of the more important microfossil records of past environments are pollen and spores which provide direct evidence of past plant communities and indirect evidence of the forces, human and natural, that have control led their dynamics and distribution. This Guide illustrates fossil pollen and fem spores commonly found in swamps, mires and other organic-rich sediments on the Southern Highlands of New South Wales and because of a similar flora, also on the Northeastern Highlands of Victoria. The Guide does not illustrate the spectrum of fossil fungal and algal remains that often are common to abundant in the same deposits. Show more