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Edited by Xavier Delclos, Universitat de Barcelona, and accepted by the Editorial Board September 26, 2008 (received for review May 22, 2008)
Abstract
Amber usually contains inclusions of terrestrial and rarely limnetic organisms that were embedded in the places were they lived in the amber forests. Therefore, it has been supposed that amber could not have preserved marine organisms. Here, we report the discovery amber-preserved marine microfossils. Diverse marine diatoms as well as radiolarians, sponge spicules, a foraminifer, and a spine of a larval echinoderm were found in Late Albian and Early Cenomanian amber samples of southwestern France. The highly fossiliferous resin samples solidified ≈100 million years ago on the floor of coastal mixed forests dominated by conifers. The amber forests of southwestern France grew directly along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean and were influenced by the nearby sea: shells and remnants of marine organisms were probably introduced by wind, spray, or high tide from the beach or the sea onto the resin flows.
Footnotes
- 1To whom correspondence may be addressed. E-mail: vincent.girard{at}univ-rennes1.fr or alexander.schmidt{at}geo.uni-goettingen.de
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Author contributions: A.R.S., G.B., and D.N. designed research; V.G., A.R.S., S.S., and V.P. performed research; V.G. and V.P. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; V.G., A.R.S., S.S.M., S.S., V.P., J.-P.S.M., D.G., and D.N. analyzed data; and V.G. and A.R.S. wrote the paper.
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The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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This article is a PNAS Direct Submission. X.D. is a guest editor invited by the Editorial Board.
- © 2008 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA
Evidence for marine microfossils from amber
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