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Morphology and Paleoecology of Pennsylvanian-Age Coal-Swamp Plants

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2017

William A. DiMichele ,
Tom L. Phillips  and
Debra A. Willard
William A. DiMichele
Affiliation:
Department of Paleobiology, (N.M.N.H.) Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560
Tom L. Phillips
Affiliation:
Department of Plant Biology, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801
Debra A. Willard
Affiliation:
Department of Plant Biology, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801
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Extract

There were two major kinds of Pennsylvanian-age tropical swamps: coal swamps, represented by most coal seams, and clastic swamps, commonly associated with coal as roof shale or sandstone floras. Such environments were part of depositionally-complex lowlands that also included non-swamp habitats. In general, the Pennsylvanian-age coal and clastic swamps were dominated by non-seed (lower vascular, spore-producing) plants, and the mesic, non-swamp vegetation was characterized by seed-plant (pollen-producing) dominance. On occasion, some drier-site kinds of vegetation are preserved, providing a glimpse of other kinds of plants in the lowland regions of the tropical belt; among these are the earliest known conifers (Scott and Chaloner, 1983) in the Middle Pennsylvanian.

Type
Research Article
Information
Series in Geology, Notes for Short Course , Volume 15: Land Plants , 1986 , pp. 97 - 114
Copyright
Copyright © 1986 University of Tennessee, Knoxville 

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