Reproductive organs and their spores from the Carboniferous coal basis of the North America

This is an interdisciplinary project integrated palaeobotanical and palynological methods of investigation of Carboniferous plants from the North American coalfields stored in large collections in the United States.The aim of the project is to study fructifications and in situ spores released from spore-bearing organs and attempt to correlate isolated plant organs to parent plants. Resulting data will not only improve our knowledge on the North American Carboniferous compression flora and its diversity in different basins and stratigraphic levels but also provide reliable platform for comparative analysis of American and European floras in term of their similarity and diversities either as a whole or within particular plant groups and in various stratigraphic levels. Such data are of the key- importance for mapping of floristic changes within the Euramerican province during the Pennsylvanian and consequently for better understanding to the controls responsible for them (climate/tectonics).