Description

Middle Miocene (Seldovian)
Sucker Creek Formation – Sucker Creek Flora
Malheur County, Oregon, USA
64mm pine needles on 80mm slab.
Leaf,

Pinus is the genus that includes pine trees and dates back to the Early Cretaceous.  The needles are the fully-developed leaves.

These pine needles were buried when the climate in Oregon was warmer than it is now.  The Early to Middle Miocene was a warmer interval than the Oligocene or the Late Miocene – just before the Middle Miocene Climatic Optimum, an interval of prolonged warming (approx. 14-16 million years ago) not only in shallow seas and at the coasts but also in the deep ocean and at higher latitudes.  The MMCO ended up being a brief interruption in an overall cooling trend that started in the Middle Eocene and led to the ices ages of the Pleistocene.