Cenozoic Era: 65.5 Million Years to Present
Oligocene Epoch: 33.9-23 Million Years Ago
Gallery: Louisiana

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Palmoxylon Cenozoic; Paleogene; Oligocene Catahoula Formation Louisiana, USA 18.5 cm x 10 cm x 7 cm thick The Shreveport Collection

Using a 10x or 20x loupe one can see fabulous tissue preservation in many Louisiana Palmoxylon fossils. One gains a new appreciation for these fossils when picking out specimens based upon preservation and color observed at only magnified levels. The first three images were taken with a Canon PowerShot SD770 IS Digital ELPH 10.0 MEGA PIXELS, cropped and resized in Adobe Photoshop CS6. The images were taken in sunlight outside.

The next five images were taken with a Dino-Lite AD7013 MT 5.0 MP. Images were resized in Adobe Photoshop CS6. The first three images are at 150x. In the first image we can see the perforation plates of the vessel elements. Perforation plates are the perforated ends of the cell walls of vessel elements. Perforation plates can be simple (open space within a rim Latin simpl "simple"), reticulate (net-like Latin reticula "network"), foraminate (numerous cirular pores Latin foram "an opening"), or scalariform from the Latin scalari "ladder" form "shape"(Borror, 1988). The vessels of this palm have scalariform (ladder-like) perforation plates.

The next two images are taken at 200x. In the last image we can once again see the ends of the vessel elements, which exhibit scalariform perforation plates.

Bibliography

Borror, D.J. (1988). Dictionary of Word Roots and Combining Forms. California: Mayfield Publishing Company.