Versteinerte Pflanzen
Ukraine, Region Lugansk, Flora of Nowopskov
Abstract
Topic of this page are occurrences of well preserved opalized gymnosperm and very rare angiosperm fossil wood from the far east of the Ukraine in the region Lugansk, near the town Nowopskov. Small old gravel pits are sporadic in production and allow findings of fossil wood, fossil cones and leaf fossils that occure in 10 cm to 50 cm thick quarzitic lenses that are a part of clastic series (sandstones, gravelstones) of paleocene age. The palaeocene series overlap upper cretaceous white to light grey marls with marine fauna (Belemnites, Molluscs). The diameters of complete cross sections of trunk- and branch-segments are 10 cm to 15 cm in maximum (up to 50 cm during the main production period of the gravel pits). The largest segment of an opalized branch we excavated in september 2011 is 80 cm in lenght and 14 cm in diameter. Over 90% of all plant fragments show boring tunnels of insects with coprolithes of two types (small type with diameters between 1 - 3 µm; larger type with diameters of 40 - 50 µm and hexagonal to subhexagonal outlines). Also a lot of finds show boring tunnels of Teredo filled with opalized sand and chalcedony. The plant fragments have been transported by a paleo-river-sytem into the litoral paleocene environment.