Editing Microfossil (section)

===Pollen grain===
[[File:Trilete spores.png|thumb|upright=1.3| {{center|[[Late Silurian]] [[sporangium]] bearing [[trilete spore]]s provide the earliest evidence of life on land.<ref name=Gray1985>{{cite journal| author = Gray, J.| date = 1985| title = The Microfossil Record of Early Land Plants: Advances in Understanding of Early Terrestrialization, 1970&ndash;1984| journal = [[Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B]] | volume = 309| issue = 1138| pages = 167–195| doi  = 10.1098/rstb.1985.0077| last2 = Chaloner| first2 = W. G.| last3  = Westoll| first3 = T. S.| jstor=2396358| bibcode=1985RSPTB.309..167G| doi-access = free}}</ref><br /><small>Green: spore tetrad. Blue: spore with Y-shaped trilete mark.<br />Spores are about 30&ndash;35&nbsp;μm across</small>}}]]
{{see also|Pollen zone}}

[[Pollen]] has an outer sheath, called a  [[sporopollenin]], which affords it some resistance to the rigours of the fossilisation process that destroy weaker objects. It is produced in huge quantities. There is an extensive fossil record of pollen grains, often disassociated from their parent plant. The discipline of [[palynology]] is devoted to the study of pollen, which can be used both for biostratigraphy and to gain information about the abundance and variety of plants alive — which can itself yield important information about paleoclimates. Also, pollen analysis has been widely used for reconstructing past changes in vegetation and their associated drivers.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Franco-Gaviria |first=Felipe |display-authors=etal |title=The human impact imprint on modern pollen spectra of the Mayan lands |year=2018 |journal=[[Boletín de la Sociedad Geológica Mexicana]] |volume=70 |issue=1 |pages=61–78 |doi=10.18268/BSGM2018v70n1a4 |url=http://boletinsgm.igeolcu.unam.mx/bsgm/vols/epoca04/7001/%284%29Franco.pdf|doi-access=free }}</ref>
Pollen is first found in the [[fossil]] record in the late [[Devonian]] period,<ref name="palynology">{{Cite book| last = Traverse | first = Alfred | chapter = Devonian Palynology | pages=199–227 | title = Paleopalynology | volume = 28 |series = Topics in Geobiology, 28 | year =2007 | publisher = Springer | location = Dordrecht | isbn = 978-1-4020-6684-9 | doi = 10.1007/978-1-4020-5610-9_8 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Wang |first1=De-Ming |last2=Meng |first2=Mei-Cen |last3=Guo |first3=Yun |title=Pollen Organ Telangiopsis sp. of Late Devonian Seed Plant and Associated Vegetative Frond |year=2016 |journal=PLOS ONE |volume=11 |issue=1 |pages=e0147984 |doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0147984 |pmid=26808271 |pmc=4725745 |bibcode=2016PLoSO..1147984W |doi-access=free }}</ref> but at that time it is indistinguishable from spores.<ref name="palynology"/> It increases in abundance until the present day.