ATLAS OF PENNSYLVANIAN (CARBONIFEROUS) AGE PLANT FOSSILS OF THE CENTRAL APPALACHIAN COALFIELDS: Volume 2

By THOMAS F. MCLOUGHLIN GEOLOGIST M.S.

This book is the second volume of a picture guide to Pennsylvanian (Carboniferous) age fossil plants and trees found in the central Appalachian coalfields which include southwest Virginia, southeast Kentucky and southwest West Virginia. This book complements and is a continuation of a previously published book on the same subject in 2017 but it

• Language: English
• Publisher: TOPLINK PUBLISHING, LLC
• Release date: Jun 19, 2018
• ISBN: 9781949169638

THOMAS F. MCLOUGHLIN GEOLOGIST M.S.

A Bachelor of Science degree was earned while attending Morehead State University at Morehead, Kentucky. In December of 1979 I completed my Master Thesis in geology at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, Kentucky. Then in June 1980 I joined the U.S. Department of Labor Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). I stayed with this agency as a geologist and coal mine inspector for 28 years collecting plant fossils in the coal mines and outcrops (road cuts) in southwestern Virginia. For approximately 26 years I taught introduction to geology courses at colleges in Cumberland, Kentucky and Wise, Virginia. I started out in geology as a "rock hound" collecting rocks, minerals and fossils. By the end of high school I decided to become a geologist and attended college. Actually my parents insisted that I leave home because it was overtaken by my rock samples. During high school and college I practiced lapidary work making jewelry from minerals and rocks.

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ATLAS OF PENNSYLVANIAN (CARBONIFEROUS) AGE PLANT FOSSILS OF THE CENTRAL APPALACHIAN COALFIELDS

Volume 2

Thomas F. McLoughlin

Geologist, M.S.

Copyright © 2018 by Thomas F. McLoughlin.

Paperback: 978-1-949169-62-1

eBook: 978-1-949169-63-8

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Front Cover:

Pennsylvanian coal swamp vegetation reconstruction, a composite of many plant types growing in and around the swamp. An original drawing composed by John Hughes at http://www.jfhdigital.com/.

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Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Chapter 1

Aborescent Lycopods (Club Mosses, Scale Trees)

Lepidodendron

Bothrodendron

Lepidophloios

Ulodendron

Chapter 2

Aborescent Lycopods (Club Mosses)

Sigillaria

Chapter 3

Calamites

(Horse Tail Rushes)

Chapter 4

Sphenophyllum

Chapter 5

Ferns and Seed Ferns

Chapter 6

Cordaites

(Early Gymnosperms)

Bibliography

Appendix A

Floral Assemblages by collection site in Virginia

Appendix B

Floral Fontal Assemblages by collection site in Kentucky

Appendix C

Floral Fontal Assemblages by collection site in West Virginia

ms-4_copy.jpg

Pennsylvanian coal swamp vegetation reconstruction, a composite of many plant types growing in and around the swamp. An original drawing composed by John Hughes at http://www.jfhdigital.com/.

Acknowledgement

This book could not have been completed without the dedicated help of Dr. Shusheng Hu, who is a paleobotonist and Collections Manager Division of Paleobotony at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History in New Haven, Connecticut and Dr. Christopher Cleal, who is a paleobotanist with the museum in Wales in the UK. I also thank Dr. Bill Di Michele, Department of Paleobiology at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History, for his review of the manuscript and helping with some of the fossil identifications. Dr. Jack Wittry, who is associated with the Science and Education division of The Field Museum Chicago Illinois lent his assistance in fossil identification.

I also want to thank my wife, Beth, for her patience and tolerance for the numerous boxes of fossil specimens in our home. She was very relieved when I donated the collection to the Virginia Museum of Natural History and the Peabody Museum in New Haven Connecticut.

All of the fossils listed in the plates were collected by and photographed by the author except as noted.

Foreword

I have spent the last thirty-six years in and around the bituminous coal mines of southwestern Virginia, Kentucky and West Virginia. When coal miners learn I am a geologist, the most popular question has been what are the kinds of fossils we see in a mine roof? I give my best reply, but it is difficult to relate to them that the plant impressions represent vegetation that grew in peat-forming swamps millions of years ago. Most people recognize the fern-like fossils, but have been confused about the identity of a portion of tree root versus the tree itself. Many believe that the fossils are not those of ancient vegetation, but instead are the preserved remains of reptiles.

Introduction

In this Volume