Palynology - Science topic

I agree with Bruno. Those look like ascidian spicules. Although identification from transmitted light is more challenging than SEM pics, you can see their crystalline structure (they are most probably aragonitic). More precise assignment would be problematic from these pictures, but the one from the picture 1402.2 could be some Didemnum species  "(...) namely

D. membranaceum Sluiter, 1909 is characterized by similar spicules (Kott 2004, fig. 19g). There is also D. candidum described by Van Name as D. candidum fusiferum (1945, fig. 37), in which some of the spicules are of similar shape." (like the spicules illustrated on the Fig. 2 W, X of my latest paper).

If you need a more precise assignment you should consider taking SEM photographs of these spicules. You definitely have some shallow water (?) marine deposits mixed up with volcanic sediments there...

Dear Dr.Bukhari

This species is from Fungi and the closest similar species is Panaeolus olivaceus

I hope this is useful to you

Here is the link to the page

My sincere respect

This is scanned literature. I cannot copy the text, but it is possible to read it.

Npp3 looks like a testate amoebae

Npp5 a dinocyst

Npp6 is Glomus, a fungal type

Npp7 is also Glomus

Npp8 looks like a sedge pollen

Npp9 is Glomus

Thank you very much for the information. This is just what I needed

In areas with high naturally occurring Lycopodium populations I often used Eucalyptus tablets. These were available from the same source in Sweden as the Lycopodium tablets. In Dr. Vaughn Bryants lab at Texas A&M University we kept both on hand as needed. Obviously we would not use Eucalyptus in southern california florida etc.

I hope they are still available.

Thank you, Phillippe!!!

Hi Marcos. This is an eternal issue for palynologists and other biostratigraphers. My general opinion is that reworked taxa should be shown in charts, and properly annotated (usually Rw). But if the reworked taxa are irrelevant to your study, you may want to exclude them from the charts, but should in any case refer to them when describing the assemblages in the text.

It depends on your objective and what you want to show with your data.

All the best

Gil

There are several companies that specialize in providing pollen traps for research purposes. Here are a few suggestions:

You may also want to check with other researchers in your field or with your university's research department to see if they have any recommendations or resources for obtaining a pollen trap.

Palynological Laboratory of the British Geological Survey (James Riding and his colleagues) has a very good sample preparation.

All the best,

Alina

Ok. I'm not sure too. Take a look at " Cirsium spp.).

It is undoubtedly a pollen Mimosaceae, usually occurs as polyads, as rightly pointed by Bir Bahadur and Marc Phillippe above.

Obianuju P. Umeji

Thank you so much @ Taravat Talebi.

Dear Muhammad,

Please find attached a new and quite efficient method, without HF.

All the best,

Patricia Piacsek

You may think of studying palaeo-environment and how human have affected the same in yours study area, may be identified/ shortlisted base don previous literature. Similarly, in identified study area, you may study how climate change has taken place and further how man or more precisely anthropogenic activities have affected its pace.

Here is a copy.

Yes, I have published on Convolvulaceae, please pass me your e-mail address

Thanks Wolfram, I already tried to get in touch with them.

Dear Mr. Akhtar,

sequence stratigraphy methods are widely used in correlation and study of facies distribution in hydrocarbon exploration . I recommend startimg with the classical studies of Wilgus et al. 1988, Emery & Myers 1996, Miall 1997, Posamentier & Allen 1999, and Catuneanu 2003.

With kind regards

H.G.Dill

Living (Extant) pollen and spores are usually brighter (more) than fossilized ones.And if you stain the slide(s) with a chemical called safranin, then the extant spores and pollen grains are stained more and are stained(accept stain) very easily.

This seems to be the most expansive list I can find

https://www.paldat.org/info/links

Jean-Jacques Châteauneuf Thnak you very much for your comment. Best regards.

Hi there, I just wanted to add an update to this post, for future readers researching pollen analysis methods. We (Quaternary Environments, Royal Alberta Museum (RAM)) no longer use nail polish as a sealant for our reference and working slides, as it is destructive to the pollen long-term based on literature (Cushing 2011) and discussions with Conservation specialists here at the RAM. We now use Acryloid (Paraloid) B-72 (conservation grade polymer/adhesive) or acrylic paint (art suppliers). The paint is the easiest to use, and provides a good seal. B-72 is easier to use if mixed with ethanol vs. acetone, which makes it less stringy when applying. It also provides a very good seal. Having a good seal, with a conservation-grade sealant, is likely one of the most important factors in preserving material long-term, both preventing biological and chemical degradation to the pollen. As discussed above and based on some users feedback, Syn-Matrix sounds like it may be a good potential alternative to other slide mounting mediums; however, fixed mounts like Syn-Matrix and others would only apply to potential use for preparing reference slides (with sufficient grains in both polar and equatorial positions). If a project requires counting and identifying pollen from slides, you need to be able to move the palynological material. Also, as I do not have experience using Syn-Matrix, I wonder how it impacts the optical properties when imaging pollen from these fixed mounts? Once pollen is fixed, if you are gathering measurements of pollen from reference material, it would be important to have extra pollen residue to put in oil, so you can obtain both polar and equatorial measurements from the same grain plus multiple grains. Some things to ponder while deciding on mounting mediums and sealants for you collections and projects. Moore/Webb/Collinson, Pollen Analysis (Blackwell Sci. Publications) is a good resource discussing general pollen analysis methods and techniques.

Prof. Dr. Roberto Risch (Autonomous University of Barcelona)

Here is a medullosean ovule at Grenoble Alp university ( OSUG's collection) this material comes from Belgium in Charleroi basin, middle Pennsylvanian age , more 90 millimeters long and associated with Alethopteris foliage.Best regards.

Palynological Laboratory Services in Wales. Top-notch preps to your specifications at a good price. Send a note to Malcolm at <plspalylab@aol.com>

These specimens can safely be placed under Lejeunecysta sp. For identification of species specimens will have to be examined under microscope.

Dear Sara,

Row 1 of your Tilia spreadsheet should contain the sample depths. Row 2 remains empty. Row 3 should contain the ages. Then your other data can follow in row 4 onwards.

It's necessary to put #Chron1 in cell A3 so that Tilia can recognise that the numbers are ages (rather than pollen counts, diatom percentages etc.)

Once the data are entered like that, my earlier suggestions about graphing the y-axes should help.

Did this work for you?

Good luck, Simon

Dear Sir

The best and quick way to solve your diagnoses problems is to contact martin J. Head in Canada at : mjhead@brocku.ca

Reza Bashiri Khuzestani , thank you for this explanation. It helps me a lot.

Thanks Saba. Are you speaking about the Type Tauta-12 (the 2 first pictures)?

Dear Homma,

I have started the project regarding Paleozoic Era in Iraqi Kurdistan. You can see the details on my page. I might start with a new project after six months . It would be my pleasure for you to join me in the upcoming project.

Regards,

Rzger

I would recommend

Palynology: principles and applications (J. Jansonius, D.C. McGregor, editors). American Association of Stratigraphic Palynologists Foundation (1996-2002)

Hi Sazal, log transformation should be fine.

Dear Mamta,

The pollen morphology of every family are different from each other by diagnostic characters and even at genus and species level variation has been studied. So, when you are studying pollen of bee flora, first you have to be knowledgeable about the flora of the area and season in which the flowers are in bloom. After that you can compere the collected pollen samples from bee and pollen studied from the flower of that specific area.

best wishes

You have an interesting presentation. It is not entirely clear from which part of the Sarmatian section the samples are taken.

Unfortunately, I study only pollen and spores, and the dinocysts are only in the plans. I previously worked primarily with the continental deposits of the Miocene and Pliocene of Ukraine. The palynological characteristics of the Pontian deposits of the Kerch Peninsula are presented in my publication: Contribution to palynological characteristic of the Pontian sediments of Eastern Para-Thetys / Geol. Journal. 2003,№4. Representative materials of the palynological characteristics of the Sarmatian deposits in the southern part of Ukraine can be found in the monograph: Shchekina N.A. The history of flora and vegetation in the south of the European part of the USSR in the Late Miocene-Early Pliocene. - Kiev: Naukova Dumka, 1979

You can use the Getdata software, it could precisely get the point (x,y) from the pollen diagram, then use the data to draw another digital diagram.

Could some of the more crumpled specimens, like the second from the left on the bottom, be Leoisphaeridia? I have similar looking problematic palynomorphs that are folded, spherical, with no ornamentation or aperture. Sometimes things get so folded I don't know what they are.

A range of options available, its depends on what details you want to get into ranging from Stereo microscope to light microscopy to the higher resolution imaging techniques ( Spinning disk confocal microscopes,

Confocal laser scanning microscope, Multi mode confocal microscope) list goes on... you have to choose whats your matter of interest.

Best of luck Sharath

Christopher:

There is no straightforward answer to your question as the subject needs to be explained in detail. However, this link would provide you with basic and useful insights:

Best

Syed

Thanks to all of you.

Dear Nasar,

May I see the photos?

Best wishes

Anna

Sukru:

You need to subject the material to EDX analysis to confirm if it is CaCO3. In case of positive response the chance of these being Coccoliths (Calcareous Nannoplankton) is great. If you put a drop of dilute HCL on the Clay sample it should also show effervescence.

Best

Syed

I

Gamal:

I am not in this area of research but there's quite a bit of research available in RG on your question that can be useful to you: https://www.researchgate.net/search.Search.html?type=publication&query=pollen%20polymorphism%20will%20lead%20to%20irreliability%20of%20pollen%20identification&tabViewId=58946d07615e272d3a636c0c&previous=researcher

Best regards,

Debra

You could check for studies on ODP leg 207 Demerara Rise and take it from there.

Buongiorno Anna Maria,

grazie per la tempestiva risposta, noi stiamo restringendo le possibilità tra Hypericum e Sophora, cosa ne pensi?

CI farebbe molto piacere potervi conoscere di persona e lavorare con voi.

Ti lascio la mia mail così possiamo scriverci più agevolmente.

Ciao

Francesca

Dear Dr Abed

I will send you details within a month.

SKS

Thanks, David.

Curiously, there is no mention of the prominences neither in diagnosis nor in description of this species. It's only visible in the photo of several specimens.

I attach two papers, one, from over 20 years ago, demonstrates how palynology can be used to help characterise systems tracts in general, with most examples from Africa, whereas the other, prepared for limnologists but which can be applied also to systems tract characterisation, shows how ecological succession can be interpreted from palynological data from lacustrine successions in the Southeast Asian region.  Both papers specifically emphaise the Cenozoic.

Store honey and pollen samples at -20 degrees Celsius.

Acetolysis is useful for easier pollen grain identification but not for honey or pollen loads characterization.

As routine, I don't use acetolysis, many many informations were lost.

Dear Reza, There is so much variation in grasses that I always suggest that you have a reference collection that includes all the possible local grasses, as well as the domesticated grasses. Because of the vagaries of preservation surface texture in fossil pollen can be altered significantly. Size is not necessarily a good criterion either. In the New World we have many native grasses, especially in the wild rye group, that are larger than 60 microns. There may be in the Middle East as well. Also the separation between Phragmites and other grasses made in the old world bothers me as well. In the New World grains smaller than 10 microns....usually closer to 5 microns are phragmites (we have the same species in North America is you have in the Middle East). We have many native grasses that are in the size range of 30 microns. I wonder how many of the "Phragmites" counts in the records from Iran are actually other wild grasses. Domesticated grasses, by the time they appear in the New World, have much thicker walls and heavier annuli than native grasses. But I think the best policy is always to compare what you are counting (until you become familiar with the variability in the pollen on your slide) with the reference collection. I cannot imagine counting pollen without a reference collection.  There are online pollen atlases, but never rely on them alone.  

http://www.geo.arizona.edu/palynology/polonweb.html 

For my own students I have assembled three posters of the commonly encountered pollen in our region. These are all to the same scale with the photos taken under 400 X. You could easily make a poster of the major domesticated grasses that you might encounter. Good luck.

I wonder, have you looked for the presence of diatoms in the sediment? They can give a reliably indication of seasonality in fresh water lakes. In the light-colored layers in varved sediments, diatoms commonly have a bimodal  stratigraphic distribution, which show up as a subtle color change. The seasonal growth cycle  starts out with a spring bloom that is often dominated by a single species,  followed by  a more diverse taxonomic distribution during the summer months.

Best wishes,

George

The Given the age you can rule out any angiosperm affinity. Definitely gymnosperm. You may be looking at a cycadeoid. Podozamites is another common generic name given to leaves like these in the Mesozoic.  I have seen cuticular analysis done to provide affinities for these types of leaves but the material you have may not be sufficient.  That other structure looks like it may be a juvenile cycad leaf/frond, it's hard to tell from this resolution. I wouldn't rule out a gnetophyte reproductive structure either, they have elaborate flower-like cones which may be what you are seeing in this structure, particularly with the elements near the base.

thank you Massih

Thank you Massih for your help!

Best regards

Hi Guillermo

You may kindly consult Vallejo et al. (2002). Cretaceous Research, 23, 845-859, and references therein.

Palynological and sequence stratigraphic analysis of the Napo Group in the Pungarayaca 30 well, sub-Andean Zone, Ecuador. best Wishes.

googling chemical analysis of clay pipes I found this 

Chemical analysis of residues from seventeenth-century clap pipes from Stratford-upon-Avon and environs  

Often, organic material (including palynomorphs) is concentrated within sediments formed during maximum flooding, although their concentration will depend on the amount of sediment influx  at the time of maximum flooding.

Dear Miroslav, 

yes, we have some macrofossil data from a Hallstatt period well at Crévéchamps (Meurthe-et-Moselle, Lorraine, France) and there are few other Hallstatt period wells from eastern France studied archaeobotanically by Françoise Toulemonde. These are macrofossil data, but multiproxy analysis of Hallstatt period wells are still lacking...

Let me know what you need for comparison.

Kind regards

Julian

To collect fern spores you could be sure to avoid contamination, an envelope  will be useful; put fertile pinae inside and seal it. you must be sure that the sporangium is mature and closed; in most ferns a brown color (with eyeglases 10 x) indicate mature sporangium; avoid green or yellow color (inmature).

keep the envelopes at least 10-15 days in room temperature to get the pinae and sporangium dry , then pas the envelop content to a 0.74 um mesh to avoid detritus in the preparations (see Mendoza-Ruiz and Pérez-García, 2009)

If you use the Erdtman acetolysis, take in count that in some fern spores, the perina (outhermost layer of the spore) can be lost. As this layer could give information to identify the genus or even specie, i recomend a fresh mount in glycerin jelly too.

On a slide, put one drop of glycerin jelly (previous heated to 50-60 °C, try to avoid bubles!) and with a fine paint brush take spores and  put in the drop by stick the brush over the slide (Its useful to do this on a scope.

The major techniques in palynology are shown In Traverse A. 2009. Paleopalynology. 2nd. Springer. Netherlands (on the apendix 615-667, see link.

Dear Lionello,

I found this type of microfossil in intertidal holocene (Roman age) deposits from Belgium:

see: https://data.inbo.be/purews/files/922447/Demey_etal_2013_Relicta.pdf

fig. 34c p.38

Also in the Netherlands, it has been found in/associated with intertidal or brackish sediments, so I think it must be related with on organism from marine or brackish environments.  For the dutch finds, see:

Pals J.P., Van Geel B. & Delfos A. 1980: Paleoecological studies in the Klokkeweel bog near Hoogkarspel (prov. of Noord-Holland), Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 30, 371-418.

and

van Geel B., Buurman J., Brinkkemper O., Schelvis J., Aptroot A., van Reenen G.

& Hakbijl T. 2003: Environmental reconstruction of a Roman Period settlement site in Uitgeest (The Netherlands), with special reference to coprophilous fungi, Journal of Archaeological Science 30, 873-883.

All the best,

Koen

This indeed partly belongs to folklore for some. The number of measurements (n) needed to approximate a particular mean value should be determined (but see statistical handbooks) by investigating the variability/distribution of your particular population. This will be (slightly) different for each plant. Are your variables normally distributed, etc.? However, for practical reasons measurements are often limited to n=30 in biology, one of the reasons being that you often have a limited number (not even 30) pollen to measure (e.g. from old herbarium specimens), and/or that you want to have a fixed and equal "n" for all plants being studied.

Clearly "30" is not a scientific "rule" or "law"...

Hi, Şükrü 

I think it is testate amoebae (Testacea), may be from genus Arcella or Centropyxis??? For more accurate identification should be better photos. 

Hi, my friend,

    thanks for your replay, I am interesting about the nature profile in Changjiang River delta now, so it is very hard to found the relation about human and the palynology. Expecially, for two parts, the firstly, how to find the species of pollen as a proxy of human actively. The secondly, how to identify that  the pollen is local resource. Because you know as huge river, the Changjiang rever always take so much materials to the river mouth. So It is very important for identify that is come form the plain or from the mid-up stream.

There are numerous factors to be in mind: the bee species and its behavior; vegetation types inside the area visited by your bees; anemophilous, polliniferous and nectariferous plants inside this area; clima conditions, if wet or dry or windy or to much sunshine. If possible make the basic physico-chemical analysis of the samples. But it is a lovely research matter!

thanks Johanenes for your opinion.

I have some samples, in each sample there is some pollens. but the type of pollen is different from one sample to another. and there are same type in some sample.