GlossopterisThese are fossils of the plant Glossopteris, which arose in the early Permian. The fossi

GlossopterisThese are fossils of the plant Glossopteris, which arose in the early Permian. The fossils indicate it to be from a group of plants known as seed-ferns and suggest it would grow up to 30 meters in height.These plants have played a large role in geology. First, these are plants that grew in the great coal swamps that began forming over 300 million years ago and continued through the Permian. There are large coal beds deposited throughout the world from the carboniferous period; formation of these coal seams would have drawn down CO2 in the atmosphere and likely triggered glaciations in the Permian.This plant also has a unique role in Geology. Fossils of this plant have been found on South America, Africa, Australia, Antarctica, and India. Today those continents are thousands of kilometers apart, but this plant suggests that wasn’t always the case. It existed for a fairly short geologic time period, was widespread, fossilized easily, and covered multiple continents. The continuous presence of this fossil across such a wide range suggested to early geologists that those continents might have once been hooked together.Today, we recognize that >250 million years ago during the Permian, South America, Africa, Australia, Antarctica, and India were all part of a larger supercontinent known as Gondwanaland, which broke apart to form the pieces we see today.-JBBImage credit: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Glossopteris_sp.,seed_ferns,_Permian-Triassic-Houston_Museum_of_Natural_Science-_DSC01765.JPGReadings:http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/235662/Glossopterishttp://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1111/j.1469-8137.1912.tb05607.x/asset/j.1469-8137.1912.tb05607.x.pdf;jsessionid=612F9AE8117F634BA1D9503379191659.f01t03?v=1&t=hz4j7c1g&s=04b6353633fb210d04f6f7f21d6f1d8999b8b916http://www.academia.edu/Documents/in/Glossopterishttp://www.palaeontologyonline.com/articles/2011/fossil-focus-coal-swamps/ -- source link

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