FOS 017
Fossilized Leaves
Location: Idaho
Family: Unknown
Fossils are a bit tricky for me to identify families/genera/species so I'm going to have to leave this identification for a later date (did you get the pun in there?). Anyway this is a small but well preserved leaf fossil from Early Eocene Epoch some 50 million years ago. It was dug up as part of the Salmon River Flora in Lemhi County, Idaho. During this time period the Earth was actually warming up and keep in mind that despite being 50 million years old this is relatively recent period as the continents were very close to their present location. You can check out an Eocene Map here. And to give you a reference point the Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction event (that's what killed off the dinosaurs) was 65. 5 million years ago.
Now I just did a little research about fossil leaves found in Idaho and I've narrowed it down to two probable genera. I am going to go with Betula which are the birches, however since I'm not a botanist I'm not positive that it can't be Alnus or the alder trees. But this leaf looks more like a birch than an alder in my opinion. If you want to learn more about fossils in general or even more specifically the fossils of Idaho check out this site which gives a very good overview of the fossilization processes and what kinds of fossils can be found from the different geological periods.
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