Abstract

13C solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance of sporopollenin from extant and extinct lycopods and gymnosperms shows that this material differs in composition between these major groups. The relative amounts of unsaturated carbon species are lower in the gymnosperms than in the lycopods in both the modern and fossil material. This suggests that the proportion of unsaturated carbon species present in the fossils is related to that of the original material. Since the fossil material used in this study was obtained from single rock samples, this largely eliminates the possibility that the observed differences in n.m.r. characteristics in fossil spore exines from different species can be attributed to different diagenetic histories.

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