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Palynology (Pollen, Spores, etc.)

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Encyclopedia of Marine Geosciences

Palynology Sensu Stricto and Sensu Lato

The word “palynology,” which is the study of pollen, comes from the Greek word palunein (to sprinkle) in reference to the pollen that is sprinkled as dust during the blooming season. Palynology became a scientific discipline in the early 1990s after the pioneer works of Lennart von Post, a Swedish geologist who produced the first pollen diagrams based on the identification and count of pollen grains from peat deposits, to reconstruct the postglacial vegetation of Western Europe (cf. Manten, 1967). Since then, palynology has been widely used to reconstruct the history of vegetation through time and past climate/environmental conditions. In botany and ecology, palynology is often associated with the study of pollen from flowering plants. In geosciences at large, palynology is used in a much broader sense because palynological slides prepared from sediment for the observation of pollen grains in optical microscopy contain many other biogenic...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre GEOTOP, Univ. Québec á Montréal, CP 8888, succ. Centre-Ville, H3C 3P8, Montréal, QC, Canada

    Anne de Vernal

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  1. Anne de Vernal
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Correspondence to Anne de Vernal .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, University of Szczecin, Szczecin, Poland

    Jan Harff

  2. Institute of Geography and Geology, University of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany

    Martin Meschede

  3. Leibiniz Institute of Marine Sciences, University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany

    Sven Petersen

  4. Academy of Sciences, Humanities, and Lit c/o Helmholtz-Center for Ocean Research, Kiel, Germany

    Jörn Thiede

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de Vernal, A. (2015). Palynology (Pollen, Spores, etc.). In: Harff, J., Meschede, M., Petersen, S., Thiede, J. (eds) Encyclopedia of Marine Geosciences. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6644-0_87-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6644-0_87-3

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  1. Latest

    Palynology (Pollen, Spores, etc.)
    Published:
    12 August 2015

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6644-0_87-3

  2. Palynology (Pollen, Spores, etc.)
    Published:
    17 February 2015

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6644-0_87-2

  3. Original

    Palynology (Pollen, Spores, etc.)
    Published:
    01 September 2014

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6644-0_87-1

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