Are Bacterial-Like Structures on Silurian and Devonian Plant Fossils Silurian or Devonian Microfossils?

PROJECT DETAILS ONLY - NO DATA. Spherical and rod-shaped structures of bacterial dimensions found on coalified Upper Silurian and Lower Devonian mesofossils including spores, cuticles and coprolites will be subjected to a number of techniques to determine whether they are biological and, if so, the timing of the colonisation (coeval, post Lower Devonian or Recent) of the plants. Techniques will involve imaging and analytical FESEM and SEM, TEM, removal of modern bacteria and simple incubation experiments with bacterial cultures. Such studies have much wider implications for the detection of bacteria in the history of life on Earth and other plants.