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Microfossils: Palynology

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Encyclopedia of Petroleum Geoscience

Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series ((EESS))

Definition

The term “palynology” is derived from the Greek palunō (“to strew or sprinkle”) and logia (“the study of”). A literal translation would be the “study of dust,” but in fact palynology is the study of microscopic organisms or parts of organisms, collectively known as palynomorphs, whose walls are composed of acid-resistant organic material. The study of organic-walled microfossils is one branch of palynology, sometimes termed paleopalynology. But most paleontologists who study these fossils describe themselves simply as palynologists.

Introduction

Palynomorphs can occur in their thousands in a few grams of sedimentary rock, a distinct advantage when using them for biostratigraphic or paleoenvironmental analyses, especially of samples recovered from wells. Perhaps the best-known palynomorphs are pollen and spores. However, palynomorphs also include acritarchs, chitinozoans, dinoflagellate cysts, and some other groups. Below we briefly discuss the morphology of each of these...

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Acknowledgments

We thank Dawn Kellett of GSC Atlantic for her insightful review that resulted in significant improvements to the text, as well as input from two anonymous reviewers and editor Rasoul Sorkhabi. We are grateful to Bill MacMillan of GSC Atlantic for help with the drafting of figures. This is ESS Contribution 20170276.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Geological Survey of Canada (Atlantic), Natural Resources Canada, Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Dartmouth, NS, Canada

    Graham Williams & Robert Fensome

  2. the irf group inc., Tulsa, OK, USA

    Merrell Miller

  3. Department of Geosciences, The University of Tulsa, Tulsa, OK, USA

    Merrell Miller

  4. Bujak Research International, Blackpool, UK

    Jonathan Bujak

Authors
  1. Graham Williams
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  2. Robert Fensome
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  3. Merrell Miller
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  4. Jonathan Bujak
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Graham Williams .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Energy and Geoscience Institute, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA

    Rasoul Sorkhabi

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Williams, G., Fensome, R., Miller, M., Bujak, J. (2018). Microfossils: Palynology. In: Sorkhabi, R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Petroleum Geoscience. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02330-4_146-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02330-4_146-1

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