What is the evidence (other than personal belief) that
>makes you think the leaves can't last for 8 weeks in the water? Do you
>know how fast the tidal bores were in your rhythmite which would bend the
>leaf? And remeber that the fulcrum or bend point would clime up the leaf
>as time went by because of the daily addition of sediment.
I have scanned an image of the rock so that you can see what I am trying to
describe visually. It is not as good as a photo, but is not bad. Next
time we have dinner I will bring it along. The photo of the frond is at
http://chadwicka.swau.edu/leaf.jpg the plane of the fossil is
perpendicular to the laminae in this fine grained sandstone, which can be
seen faintly in the lower right hand corner. A second fossil, similar to
the first, is located mutually perpendicular to the first, and the bedding,
on the left hand side of the specimen. I obtained some beautiful
Stigmarian roots in a specimen of the same laminated sediment, but the
specimen is too large to fit on my scanner! THe Stigmaria root stocks have
been found lying parallel to the laminae and running perpendicular to them
as well! But they are in blocks of rock weighing 100 lbs or so. The
fossils and tidal cycles come from the Mansfield Fm. (L. Penn) in S-Central
Indiana. see article on this deposit in Kvale et. al. Geology Apr 1989 p.365.
Art
http://biology.swau.edu
