Where: Yunnan, China (26.5° N, 100.2° E: paleocoordinates 25.7° N, 99.5° E)

• coordinate stated in text

• outcrop-level geographic resolution

When: Sanying Formation, Late/Upper Pliocene (3.6 - 2.6 Ma)

• 4th member, numbered from bottom to top

• member-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: fluvial; carbonaceous claystone and gray siltstone

Size class: mesofossils

Collection methods: sieve

• "Fresh sediment approximating 50 L in volume was previously quarried from the siltstone layer at the fossil site. The sediment was immersed in water until it became a slurry, which was then filtered successively through sieves of 4, 1, and 0.5 mm to exclude small clay particles. Residues on the 4 mm sieve were checked with unaided eyes, while those on the 1 and 0.5 mm sieves were checked with the aid of a Leica binocular microscope (S8APO, Germany). Intact and fragmentary fruits and seeds, as well as many other plant organs such as conifer needles and shoots, were isolated from the mixture. They were gently cleaned using an ultrasonic bath (GT-1620QTS​, China) to remove clay particles adhering on their surface. Air dried, the fossil fruits and seeds were observed once more with the Leica binocular microscope, and 732 specimens belonging to 11 genera of herbs were recognized. Most of them were intact, but some were fragmentary." (Huang et al. 2021)

•Repository: Key Laboratory for Plant Biodiversity and Biogeography of East Asia, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Primary reference: Y. J. Huang, H. Zhu, T. Su, R. A. Spicer, J. J. Hu, L. B. Jia, and Z. K. Zhou. 2021. Rise of herbaceous diversity at the southeastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau: First insight from fossils. Journal of Systematics and Evolution [B. Allen/B. Allen]more details

Purpose of describing collection: paleoecologic analysis

PaleoDB collection 224476: authorized by Bethany Allen, entered by Bethany Allen on 08.03.2022

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)