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Molecular Taphonomy of Plant Organic Skeletons

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Taphonomy

Part of the book series: Aims & Scope Topics in Geobiology Book Series ((TGBI,volume 32))

Abstract

Selective preservation of resistant biomacromolecules, such as cutan in leaf cuticles; lignin in woods, fruit walls and seed coats; sporopollenin in spores and pollen and algaenan in algal cysts, has previously been invoked in survival of these tissues and organs in the fossil record. A growing body of evidence is questioning this paradigm, suggesting that biomacromolecules may provide the structural template for formation of geomacromolecules in fossils which form as the result of (i) polymerization of labile constituents (e.g. in situ polymerization of cutin, waxes and internal lipids in cuticles; oxidative polymerization incorporating an aliphatic component into sporopollenin), (ii) loss (e.g. loss of cellulose from lignin–cellulose complexes), and (iii) transformation (e.g. lignin methoxyphenols to phenols). Recommended future research directions include: (a) taphonomic experiments to simulate the molecular alteration sequence in diverse environments, (b) analysis of fossils (time series) from a range of depositional settings, and (c) identifying those modern plant organs that lack an expected fossil record. This will require a combination of microscopical and chemical approaches to monitor alteration and understand specific controls on plant preservation.

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Acknowledgments

Special thanks are due to Jan de Leeuw and Pim van Bergen for their long term interest, enthusiasm, support, and friendship in our collaborative studies of the organic geochemistry of plant fossils. I would like to thank Ben van Aarsen, Pim van Bergen, Peter Blokker, Tony Brain, Derek Briggs, Richard Evershed, Paul Finch, Neal Gupta, Jan de Leeuw, Raymond Michels, Barbara Mösle, Rich Pancost, Andrew Scott and Gerard Versteegh for their previous, and in many cases ongoing, collaboration; to the chemists amongst them also my thanks for their patience with my inadequate knowledge of chemistry. Any errors in the present work are entirely those of the author. Funding from a Royal Society 1983 University Research Fellowship, the NERC Biomolecular Palaeontology Special Topic, the NERC Ancient Biomolecules Initiative (grants GST/02/1030 and 1390) and from the Petroleum Research Fund, American Chemical Society (the latter to collaborators Pancost, Briggs and Michels) is gratefully acknowledged.

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  1. Department of Earth Sciences, Royal Holloway University of London, Egham, Surrey, TW20 0EX, UK

    Margaret E. Collinson

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  1. Department of Earth Science & Engineering, Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus, SW7 2AZ, London, UK

    Peter A. Allison

  2. Department of Earth Sciences, University of Southern California, 90089-0740, Los Angeles, California, USA

    David J. Bottjer

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Collinson, M.E. (2011). Molecular Taphonomy of Plant Organic Skeletons. In: Allison, P.A., Bottjer, D.J. (eds) Taphonomy. Aims & Scope Topics in Geobiology Book Series, vol 32. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8643-3_6

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