Petrified Flora and Fauna from the Carboniferous – Peering into the Past 300 Million Years Ago

This chapter explores below the surface appearance of morphologically well-preserved fossil cuticular remains both plant and animal origin from Carboniferous geological period which extends end Devonian Period ~ 360 million years ago to beginning Permian 300 ago. Petrification in this context then is a natural unimaginably long-lasting process leading preservation, compression, compaction consolidation. work driven by spirit scientific enquiry that has marked development palaeontology since seventeenth century crucial role technology sciences. The beginnings can be firstly attributed insights made Nicolas Steno Fabio Colonna as well later discoveries Georges Cuvier publication Charles Lyell’s Principles Geology where much thought was based on catastrophism compromise between religious stories such Biblical flood growing knowledge formations notion deep-time. In study fossils higher arthropod are analysed using pyrolysis-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry light microscopy.