Word: behunin
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
While hunting outside the Utah town of Redmond, Homer Behunin, 49, an amateur geologist, took a shot at a large male deer. The wounded buck ran off. As Behunin followed in hot pursuit, he stumbled onto a far more important prize: the fossilized remains of a primeval palm tree that may be the oldest flowering plant ever found...
...first glance, the 4-ft.-long, buff-colored fossilized log that Behunin discovered seemed not at all remarkable. It lay in a countryside of desert valleys in central Utah that 150 million years ago was a lush tropical shore along an inland sea, inhabited by huge flesh-eating dinosaurs. The area has thus yielded a rich supply of plant and animal fossils. Examining a specimen of the fossil under a microscope, Paleobotanist William D. Tidwell of Brigham Young University recognized the unmistakable cellular structure of the palm...
Original Position. While the scientists argued, Behunin discovered another important clue. This time he spotted what he thought were petrified twigs. Tidwell quickly identified them as roots of ancient palms. Furthermore, he noted that the roots were embedded in the sandstone in what was undoubtedly their original growth position. "This clinched it for us," Tidwell recalls. "There could now be no doubt that palm trees were growing in these sediments when they were being laid down and that the flowering plants had already established a foothold 150 million years...
| 1 |