Organic Preservation of Biopolymers in Fossil Leaves - Biopolymers: A Molecular Paleontology Approach - page 62

29

a

Fossil Quercus hispanica specimen 2

15

56

200 150 100 50 0 -50

ppm

29

b

Fossil Populus alba specimen 2

15

56

200 150 100 50 0 -50

ppm

Fig. 3.11 13 C NMR CP-MAS spectra of fossil leaves. ( a ) Castaneavesca specimen 2 ( b ) Populu-
salba specimen 2

FTIR was used to obtain further structural information. FTIR is particularly
effective for the characterisation of oxygen functionalities and has been applied
previously to fossil algaenan (Blokker et al. 1998 ), Gloeocapsomorphaprisca
microfossils (Derenne et al. 1994 ), kerogen (Landais et al. 1993 ) and plant fossil
cuticles (Mösle et al. 1998 ; Collinson et al. 1998 ). In the traditional global mode
analysis (KBr) technique, one of the primary limitations is that the mineral content