 Co-occurring gymnosperm foliage in the Late Triassic plant fossil assemblage from Mt. Falla, Queen Alexandra Range, East Antarctica |
Around this same time, The Geological Survey of India and an oil company sent a team of geologists to carefully study the Salt Range Formation, and on the basis of their field observations they concluded that it was in normal position below the Cambrian Purple Sandstone and was thus Cambrian in age. This conclusion was announced in a letter to Nature (1945). Among the geologists signing the letter was Gee, previously an advocate of an Eocene age for the Salt Range Formation. The geologists admitted, however, that “our conclusions were arrived at despite certain difficulties, such as the occurrence of minute plant fragments of post-Cambrian age in the dolomites and oil shales, for which we have at present no clear explanation to offer.” This line of reasoning is based on the assumption that land plants did not come into being until the Silurian (about 400 million years ago), with advanced plants such as angiosperms not arising until the Cretaceous (about 100 million years ago). |
