Geologic Range of Paleozoic Plant Spores in North America

Plant spores and other microfossils from Upper Devonian and Lower Mississippian rocks of Ohio

“…Most of the literature on Mississippian spores is not concerned with spores of earliest Mississippian age. Hoffmeister, Staplin, and Malloy (1955a) note the lack of information about spores of this age.…”

“…Much of this work is being undertaken in petroleum company laboratories (Armstrong, 1953;Hoffmeister, Staplin, and Malloy, 1955a;Kuyl, Muller, and Waterbolk, 1955); active investigation of coals has continued (Dijkstra, 1946;Gross, 1947;Kosanke, 1950;Arnold, 1950). Literature on the more general aspects, as well as detailed studies of the various facets of spore and pollen studies, is becoming voluminous.…”

“…27). Hoffmeister, Staplin, and Malloy (1955b) give a detailed account of the assemblages of small spores in the Hardinsburg sandstone and a summary account of that in the Waltersburg sandstone (pi. 27), both of Late Mississippian age from Kentucky and Illinois.…”

“…Oil company paleontologists (Armstrong, 1953;Malloy, 1955a, 1955b;Kuyl, Muller, and Waterbolk, 1955;Norem, 1955;Wilson and Hoffmeister, 1955;Woods, 1955) are taking practical advantage of the relative abundance of spores and pollen to hystrichosphaerids and other fossils in well samples. Armstrong (1953) reports that fossil spores and pollen occur in about 45 percent of well cuttings examined, whereas Foraminifera and larger fossils are normally present in less than 1 percent.…”

A biography and obituary of Alfred Traverse (1925–2015)

“…He was rather claustrophobic and this clearly was a significant factor in Al joining Shell. The Shell job was Al's first primary position as a palynologist, at a time when stratigraphical palynology was expanding almost exponentially in the US oil industry and elsewhere (Hoffmeister et al 1955;Woods 1955). This new job led to Al travelling to the international headquarters of Shell in The Hague, The Netherlands, where he spent four months undertaking corporate orientation and studying their in-house palynological techniques.…”