Abstract Detail

Paleobotany

Serbet, Rudolph [1], Taylor, Edith L [2].

University of Kansas paleobotany collections: An inventory of geological and paleobotanical diversity.

The Division of Paleobotany at the University of Kansas (KU), in conjunction with the Biodiversity Institute (BI), the KU Center for Research and the National Science Foundation (NSF) recently secured funding to expand both its collections space and storage capacity. The NSF support has enabled the Division to purchase a state-of-the-art compactor system that will provide storage space for currently uncurated specimens and for the acquisition of new material. The compactor specifications were based on several factors. These include the ability to house the maximum number of specimens in the available space, the weight that the material will subject the system to and the load-bearing properties of the floor. Careful consideration of all of these factors has produced an ideal storage system that will allow the collections to grow for several years. The KU paleobotanical collections consist of a diverse assemblage of taxa, geologic time frames and preservational types. By far the bulk of the collection is made up of Permian, Triassic and Jurassic fossil plants from numerous Antarctic localities. This part of the collection contains approximately 20,000 permineralized and compression/impression specimens and is perhaps the largest collection of Antarctic fossil plants in the world. The collection is also rich in Devonian, Pennsylvanian and non-Antarctic Jurassic fossil plants. Over the years a number of collections have been incorporated and these have greatly diversified various aspects of the KU collections. These collections include material from James M. Schopf, Lawrence Matten, Ted Delevoryas, Robert Hope, Gar Rothwell and Gene Mapes. The various datasets associated with all of the KU paleobotanical collections are currently being migrated from FileMaker Pro into the Specify platform. Once in this data basing format, it will be available on line and can be searched individually or through portals such as iDigBio.

1 - University Of Kansas, Division Of Paleobotany, NAT HIST MUS & BIODIV RES INST, 1200 Sunnyside Avenue, Lawrence, KS, 66045, USA
2 - University of Kansas, Biodiversity Institute, Lawrence, Kansas, 66045, United States

Keywords:
collections
Paleobotany
Kansas
fossil plants
Antarctica.

Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 25, Cretaceous/Cenozoic/collections paleobotany
Location: Sundance 3/Omni Hotel
Date: Tuesday, June 27th, 2017
Time: 11:45 AM
Number: 25007
Abstract ID:203
Candidate for Awards:None