Evidence for marine microfossils from amber
- aUniversité de Rennes 1, Unité Mixte de Recherche Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique 6118, 263 avenue du Général Leclerc, F-35042 Rennes Cedex, France;
- bCourant Research Centre Geobiology, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Goldschmidtstrasse 3, D-37077 Göttingen, Germany;
- cMuseum für Naturkunde der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Invalidenstrasse 43, D-10115 Berlin, Germany;
- dMuséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Unité Mixte de Recherche Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique 5143, 8 rue Buffon, F-75231 Paris Cedex 05, France;
- eFacultatea de Geologie si Geofizica, Universitatea din Bucuresti, bulevardul N. Balcescu no. 1, Bucuresti, Romania;
- fPaleontological Institute, University of Kansas, Lindley Hall, 1475 Jayhawk Boulevard, Lawrence, KS 66045; and
- gUniversité Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg 1, Ecole et Observatoire des Sciences de la Terre, Unité Mixte de Recherche Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique 7517, 1 rue Blessig, F-67084 Strasbourg Cedex, France
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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