Description
Middle Miocene
Braunkohle Lignite
Adendorf, Rhineland, Germany
Large 1.8 inch cone
Cone, Conifer.
Here is a fossil cone of the genus, Picea, which includes a wide variety of spruce trees.
This specimen was deposited during a warm phase of the Cenozoic Era and just before the Middle Miocene Climatic Optimum, an interval of prolonged warming (approx. 14-16 million years ago) in not only shallow seas and 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.