Detection of some woody plants in Late Oligocene forests of Istanbul

Abstract

A paleopalynological study was performed on the fossilized pollen found in the coal and clay layers of the Akcelik Coalmine, which is one of the open lignite quarries located at the northern part of Istanbul, and 15 genera belonging to 14 families were identified from the late Oligocene of Istanbul. Of these 14 families, 4 families belong to Gymnospermae, and 10 of them belong to Angiospermae. In the study, 85.8% of pollen is arboreal (AP) (woody plants), 10.4% is non-arboreal (NAP) (herbal plants), and rest of them (3.8%) could not be identified. The middle coal layer has a significant number of pollen grains. While lower part of the middle coal layer is mainly represented by broad-leaved tree pollen and its upper part is mainly Juniperus. A clear change from plants of humid conditions to the plants of drier conditions is observed. The lower number of pine pollen grains shows that there was no forest of this genus in that site. Sequoia and Taxodium, which had wide forests during Oligocene but are completely disappeared at present, are represented with low number of pollen grains in that time.