Pollen analysis dating

Early investigators include Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg (radiolarians, diatoms and dinoflagellate cysts), Gideon Mantell (desmids) and Henry Hopley White (dinoflagellate cysts). Weber 1918) appear to be among the first to undertake 'percentage frequency' calculations.

Reinsch were able to examine the presence of fossil spores in the Devonian and Carboniferous coal seams and make comparisons between the living spores and the ancient fossil spores.Palynomorphs, however, generally have been destroyed in metamorphic or recrystallized rocks.Typically, palynomorphs are dinoflagellate cysts, acritarchs, spores, pollen, fungi, scolecodonts (scleroprotein teeth, jaws and associated features of polychaete annelid worms), arthropod organs (such as insect mouthparts), chitinozoans and microforams.As a result, these microfossils give important clues to the prevailing climatic conditions of the time.Their paleontological utility derives from an abundance numbering in millions of cells per gram in organic marine deposits, even when such deposits are generally not fossiliferous.