One of the world's most important plant families has a history extending much farther south than any live or fossil specimen previously recorded, as shown by chinquapin fruit and leaf fossils unearthed in Patagonia, Argentina, according to researchers.
In graduate school Peter Wilf published his first paper in the journal Paleobiology. So, the geosciences professor said being named a Fellow of the Paleontological Society, which publishes the journal, was an extra special honor.
Delicate fossil remains of tomatillos found in Patagonia, Argentina, show that this branch of the economically important family that also includes potatoes, peppers, tobacco, petunias and tomatoes existed 52 million years ago, long before the dates previously ascribed to these species, according to an international team of scientists.
Ancient feeding marks from hungry insects in South American leaf fossils are shedding new light on the mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs.
Peter Wilf, professor of geosciences at Penn State, and an international team developed a machine learning algorithm that can identify leaf images into their biological families.
A computer program that learns and can categorize leaves into large evolutionary categories such as plant families will lead to greatly improved fossil identification and a better understanding of flowering plant evolution, according to an international team of researchers.
The sweet, juicy peaches we love today might have been a popular snack long before modern humans arrived on the scene.
Molecular clocks -- based on changes in genetic material -- indicate much younger ages for a wide variety of plants found as fossils in southern Argentina than do the solid, geologic dates of those fossils, according to geoscientists who surveyed recent paleobotanical discoveries in Patagonia.
After the asteroid impact at the end of the Cretaceous period that triggered the dinosaurs' extinction and ushered in the Paleocene, leaf-mining insects in the western United States completely disappeared. Only a million years later, at Mexican Hat, in southeastern Montana, fossil leaves show diverse leaf-mining traces from new insects that were not present during the Cretaceous, according to paleontologists.
Observations of insects and their feeding marks on leaves in modern forests confirm indications from fossil leaf deposits that the diversity of chewing damage relates directly to diversity of the insect population that created it, according to an international team of researchers.
Today in Australia they call it Kauri, in Asia they call it Dammar, and in South America it does not exist at all unless planted there. However, 52 million years ago the giant coniferous evergreen tree known to botanists as Agathis thrived in the Patagonian region of Argentina, according to an international team of paleobotanists who have found numerous fossilized remains there.
Sediment behind milldams in Pennsylvania preserved leaves deposited just before European contact that provide a glimpse of the ancient forests, according to a team of geoscientists, who note that neither the forests nor the streams were what they are today.
Peter Wilf was the fourth speaker in this season's Research Unplugged conversation series last Wednesday, April 7th at the Penn State Downtown Theatre.
How did you first become interested in geosciences?
Though always interested in the natural world, I discovered geology as my discipline rather late, at almost 30 years old. Deciding to go back to school as a graduate student, I wanted to study the evolution of life through time. It quickly became apparent that I really wanted to study fossils, and fossils are in rocks. I jumped in all the way and have never looked back.
What is the most exciting or fascinating aspect of your research?
"Although they are vastly different today, millions of years ago, Antarctica and Australia had very similar ecosystems because they used to be connected."
--Peter Wilf, associate professor of geosciences, at the Research Unplugged discussion on Wednesday, April 7. Research Unplugged is an informal lecture series hosted by Penn State's Office of Research Publications and held at noon Wednesdays in Penn State's Downtown Theatre Center. The afternoon begins with a brief introduction of the topic, followed by an open floor for questions, comments and discussion. The event is free to the public. Complimentary coffee and light refreshments are served. For information, visit http://www.rps.psu.edu/unplugged/.
