Our museums and galleries house fascinating collections, from living bugs to The Beatles, fine art to photography, the Titanic to ancient Egypt.

Follow us online: Facebook Twitter Flickr

National Museums Liverpool Blog - Aloha new acquisition

 Friday, November 03, 2006

Aloha new acquisition


Friday 03 November 06

a man standing next to a very tall piece of rock with a fossield plant stem in itThis photo gives you a sense of the size of the frond.

Check out this monster. It's the latest acquisition for World Museum Liverpool. It's a 50 million year old palm frond, Sabalites sp. It was found in Folly Quarry on the Lewis Ranch, near Kemmerer Wyoming City, Western Lincoln County, Wyoming, USA. It's over seven feet tall as you can probably guess looking at the man to the right of this photo

Now for the technical bit from curator, Dr Alan Bowden:

The rock formation is the Fossil Butte Member of the Green River Formation, Eocene (50 million years ago). The Green River Formation of Wyoming represents sediment that was laid down in a series of large freshwater lakes. Algal blooms led to a lack of oxygen in the water causing many of the lake’s animals and plants to die, as well as stopping bacterial action on the bottom of the lake. Here, dead animals and plants that would normally have rotted away were preserved in exceptional detail. Deposits such as this provide a rare glimpse into a long vanished world with its spectacular preservation of plant and animal remains. The fossil palm frond shows us that 50 million years ago this was a subtropical environment with lush and exotic vegetation bordering a large lake complex. It was a very different environment from the high mountain desert found in Wyoming today, where temperatures frequently go below freezing with long winter snows.

There are further photos of this fossil on our Flickr page.


Posted by Karen | 03/11/2006 16:13   | Comments [0]

Post a comment

All comments require the approval of the site owner before being displayed.
Name
E-mail

Comment (HTML not allowed)  

Enter the code shown (prevents robots):

Live Comment Preview

By posting your comment you have agreed to the terms and conditions below

Terms & Conditions

National Museums Liverpool welcomes your comments. All comments are moderated and will only be published if they adhere to the following standards. The editors reserve the right not to publish comments which they deem inappropriate:

  1. Our Maritime Archives and Library deals with enquiries relating to all aspects of Liverpool's maritime history including ships, passengers, seafarers, shipping and maritime companies. Their web pages describe the information they hold and how to get in touch, along with useful research guides on popular subjects such as tracing seafaring or emigrant ancestors. Please do not submit requests for this type of information as comments on this blog.
  2. Specific enquiries, as opposed to comments on blog posts, should be submitted using our contact system. Please note that we do not provide valuations.
  3. Posts must be text only and under 1000 characters (including spaces). Html code, links or multimedia are not permitted.
  4. We will aim (but do not guarantee) to publish approved comments within 72 hours although there may be delays over weekends and during public holidays.
  5. Please do not post anything that is libellous, abusive, obscene, prejudiced or unlawful.
  6. Do not contravene any rights to privacy (such as personal contact details), copyright or trademark legislation.
  7. Please do not spam or post commercial promotional information.
  8. By posting you agree that you are wholly responsible for the content that you post. Although the blog comments will be moderated National Museums Liverpool will publish comments in the good faith that they comply with the law.
  9. By posting your comment you agree that it may be reproduced by National Museums Liverpool online or in print without compensation.