Pollen Pollen Palynology is the study of pollen, spores and other plant microfossils.
Pollen have durable cell walls, made of a substance called sporopollenin.
The tough cell walls help preserve pollen and spores long after the grains are buried in sediment and make them common fossils. We identify pollen by its shape and structure, often allowing us to identify its family and, in some cases, genus and species. In the lab, we use strong acids and bases to remove the rocks and other plant material from the pollen samples. What remains is a pollen-rich sludge that we smear across microscope slides and place under the microscope. Sometimes every grain on a slide is counted as part of the analysis, but usually we count a subsample on each slide by scrolling the slide up and down in discrete rows, counting and identifying every type we see.