City scientist digs up key leaf fossil find

Published on Monday 3 March 2008 09:31

A SCIENTIST from the National Museums of Scotland has discovered a fossil that could change our view of the prehistoric landscape.

Dr Nick Fraser, the museum's Keeper of Natural Sciences, found the 220 million-year-old fossil on a geological survey in China.

The small, fossilised plant could change our view of the environment in which the Triassic dinosaurs lived. It is the first time it has been found in the northern hemisphere.

Scientists had previously believed there was a sharp distinction in types of vegetation found on northern and southern continents, but this new find blurs the distinction.

Dr Fraser and his team stumbled across the fossil in the Liaoning province of northern China.

He said: "We discovered a collection of seed bodies, known as Umkomasia, often found in association with a special kind of leaf fossil called Dicroidium – one of the dominant types of plant fossil in the southern hemisphere."

His colleague, Dr Brian Axsmith, added: "I had to pinch myself to be reminded that I was in northern China, not Antarctica or somewhere else in the southern hemisphere.

"It is a very important discovery."