Paleobotany deciphers Earth's deep botanical history by studying fossilized leaves, pollen, wood, and microscopic silica bodies preserved in sedimentary rocks. Because plants are sessile organisms exquisitely tuned to their environment, their fossils serve as high-fidelity paleoclimate proxies — recording temperature, atmospheric CO2, rainfall, and seasonality across millions of years.
These simulations let you estimate paleotemperature from leaf margin percentages, reconstruct ancient CO2 levels from stomatal density, build pollen percentage diagrams that reveal shifting vegetation zones, decode growth rings in petrified wood for paleoclimate signals, and classify phytolith morphotypes to infer grassland versus forest habitats.