Late Oligocene

A three-week field expedition to the Ethiopian Plateau in January, 2001, in collaboration with Dr. John Kappelman, UT Austin Department of Anthropology, was aimed at collecting plant fossils dated at about 26 million years old. The Ethiopian localities fall into a time period when it is hypothesized that lowland equatorial rain forest may have been at its greatest extent in Africa. The Ethiopian sites provide data from the gap in the paleobotanical record between the Tanzanian locality at 46 million years and younger sites of Miocene age from the Uganda and Kenya, including those discussed above.

The field trip uncovered great potential for paleobotanical work in this region, evidenced by the discovery of a fossil forest of in situ silicified trees, another in situ assemblage of fossil wood directly associated with leaf impressions, abundant fruit and seed fossils associated with vertebrate remains, and an excellently preserved leaf bed that will enable climate reconstruction.