Rare Arctic fossils unite student, Professor in exploration of ancient climate change - world.edu

Rare Arctic fossils unite student, Professor in exploration of ancient climate change - world.edu: "Witkowski performed a molecular-level assessment of 15-million-year-old fossilized conifers that once thrived in the high latitudes of the Canadian Arctic during the Miocene era – a time when the earth’s climate was warming. Other scientists have conducted similar analyses on fossils found elsewhere, but Witkowski is the first to zero in on newly discovered fossils found on Banks Island, Northwest Territories, Canada.

Her studies determined that the molecular components of these rare fossils are extremely well preserved, more so than 45-million-year-old Arctic fossil conifers analyzed by Professor Yang in 2005. Such findings paved the way for further molecular-level analyses using other organic geochemistry and stable isotope technologies. Working with Qin Leng, associate professor of biology at Bryant University, they found in these fossils the link between molecular composition and three-dimensional preservation, which is a very rare mode of preservation in plant fossil material."