There is a Maori legend than when one of their ancestral canoes (the Te Arawa) approached New Zealand after traveling from its …
New Zealand paleobotany
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Curio Bay - New Zealand's Jurassic Fossil Forest
Horsetail Marshes of the New Zealand Jurassic
by Mike Poleby Mike PoleIn the Jurassic, New Zealand had ‘horsetails’ (Latin: Equisetum) –Â an odd-looking plant , a bit like a long brush with whorls of …
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New Zealand paleobotanyNew Zealand plant fossils
Miocene Nothofagus in New Zealand’s Manuherikia Group
by Mike Poleby Mike PolePerhaps the most surprising thing about Nothofagus leaf fossils in New Zealand is – not finding them. Nothofagus is another name for the southern …
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New Zealand paleobotanyNew Zealand plant fossils
Interdistributary drifters – a Miocene bay in New Zealand
by Mike Poleby Mike PoleOne of the more evocative Miocene fossils you might pick up near Bannockburn, New Zealand, are she-oak ‘cones’ (see the featured image). …
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Curio Bay - New Zealand's Jurassic Fossil Forest
Podozamites – a multi-veined conifer in New Zealand’s Jurassic
by Mike Poleby Mike PoleMost conifer leaves have just one vein, whether they be the needles of pines, or the much broader leaves of some tropical …
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New Zealand paleobotanyNew Zealand plant fossils
Blue Lake, St Bathans – the most biodiverse Miocene fossil plant locality
by Mike Poleby Mike PoleThe biodiversity of Blue Lake, at St Bathans, New Zealand, is precisely zero. It is an artificial lake partly filling a hole …
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New Zealand paleobotanyNew Zealand plant fossils
Giant Pea Pod fossils in New Zealand’s Miocene
by Mike Poleby Mike PolePea pod fossils in New Zealand were first found by Aline Holden, a pioneer of New Zealand plant fossil research. She found …
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New Zealand paleobotanyNew Zealand plant fossils
Hoop Pine fossils – dry rainforest in New Zealand’s Miocene
by Mike Poleby Mike PoleIn a little patch of shale, continually flaking onto the road near Bannockburn (central South Island, New Zealand), there are the unmistakable fossils …
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Curio Bay - New Zealand's Jurassic Fossil Forest
New Zealand: The Jurassic fossil forest at Curio Bay
by Mike Poleby Mike PoleIf you make your way down to almost the bottom of New Zealand’s South Island, you can walk among the stumps of …
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New Zealand GeologyNew Zealand paleobotanyNew Zealand plant fossils
Five Degrees of Global Warming – The Leaf Fossils of Kakahu, New Zealand
by Mike Poleby Mike PoleSometime in the 1980s my Prof, ‘JDC’ (Doug Campbell of the Otago University), showed me a box of spectacular leaf fossils that …