SATURDAY, JANUARY 14, 2017
NEWS
THE BRANDONSUN
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LEFT: Brandon University biology Prof. David Greenwood holds the palm leaf fossil he found while searching through other fossil plant collections at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller,
photos)
Alta. RIGHT: Originally collected in 1995 by scientists from the Royal Tyrrell Museum, the small palm leaf fossil is estimated to be 65 million years old. (Submitted
BU prof using fossil to look at climate changes
entirely new species of fossil the evolutionary history of
palm, were originally collected palms in North America."
Very few palms can tolerate
Some fossils from Alberta by scientists from the Royal
that a Brandon University Tyrrell Museum in 1995near colder conditions, Greenwood
said. The new fossils
professorhappened to stumble Edmonton.
"I was pretty excited at the demonstrate that in the past,
upon are giving new insight
into past climate changes.
time ... It wasn't something I palms grew much farther
BY ERIN DEBOOY
While visiting the Royal was looking for, but having
Tyrrell
Museum
of found it I saw its importance
Palaeontology in Drumheller, and I went forward with it,"
biology
Prof.
David Greenwood said.
Greenwood found some small
The fossilized palm leaf
palm leaf fossils in the may be little, but its
north than had been ever
recorded east of the Rocky
Mountains.
The palm fossils are also
from a key period, the earliest
Paleocene.
"In terms of the historyof
give researchersinsight into life, that's just after the
through their collectionswhile what the climate was like in extinction of the dinosaurs.
was there, see if I could find the area 65 million years ago, That's important in itself
anything interesting which Greenwood said.
because it means this little
is what, in fact, happened,"
"My main work is to palm was growing at a time
Greenwood said. "I thought, reconstruct climates in the when North America was
'Wow, I need to work on past, and that was certainly recovering from the big event
these."'
part of the research that we that wiped out the dinosaurs,"
The
fossils,
which did," he said. "This little palm Greenwood said.
Greenwood said are an
gives us some clues as to
Based
research
on
collection.
"1 thought I'd have a look
importance lies in its ability to
surrounding this
fossil, frost but it wouldn't have Review of Palaeobotany and
Greenwood is able to paint a
frozen," Greenwood said.
Palynology.
"A mild place, quite
Greenwood, working with
climate might have been like. different
than
almost his graduate student,
This ancient Canadian palm anywhere in Canada."
Christopher West from the
grew in a temperate broadleaf
The fossils are still with University of Saskatchewan,
deciduous forest, in a warm Greenwood in Brandon, he discussed the climatic
and wet, but not tropical said. However, he will be implications of palm trees
climate in Alberta.
packaging them up shortly occurring so far north in
In many ways, the forest and sending them back to the Canada's.geological past.
would seem familiar to s Royal Tyrrell Museum soon.
"A lot of what we do is
Details of the new palm curiosity driven," Greenwood
people, with pines, evergreens
and ferns mixed with more species — named sabalites said. "It's time travel without
exotic elements, such as geneseensisafter the Genesee the risk."
swamp cypress trees and fossil site in Alberta where the
palms.
fossil was found -— were » [email protected]
"The climate would have recently published in the » Twitter. @erindebooy
looked very different than
vivid picture of what the
what we have in Alberta right
now it would look more
like San Francisco
not
super hot in summer, not
super cold in winter, you
could have a snow fall and a