Middle Miocene

Braunkohle Lignite

Adendorf, Rhineland, Germany

Large 1.8 inch cone

Cone, Conifer.

Here is a fossil cone of the genus, Picea, which includes a wide variety of spruce trees.

This specimen was deposited during a warm phase of the Cenozoic Era and just before the Middle Miocene Climatic Optimum, an interval of prolonged warming (approx. 14-16 million years ago) in not only shallow seas and coasts but also in the deep ocean and at higher latitudes.  The MMCO ended up being a brief interruption in an overall cooling trend that started in the Middle Eocene and led to the ices ages of the Pleistocene.