Acer beckianum
Extinct species of maple
Acer beckianum is an extinct maple species in the family Sapindaceae described from a single fossil wood section. The species is solely known from the Middle Miocene sediments exposed in central Washington in the United States. It is one of three Washington state Acer species described in 1961 from petrified wood.
Distribution and paleoenvironment
The type specimen was part of a collection compiled by Jay O'Leary, who was then a student of Harvard College, in 1954 from the west bank of the Columbia River near Vantage, Washington. The petrified woods of the area are preserved in an interbed area between the older Grande Ronde Basalt and the younger Wanapum basalts, with the interbed overlain by the Ginkgo Flow, the oldest segment of the Frenchman Springs Member of the Wanapum basalts.
K–Ar dating performed on the Grande Ronde Basalts gives an age of 15.6 million years old, and dating of the Frenchman Springs Member gives a date of 15.3 million years old. This places the vantage woods as from the Langhian stage of the Miocene. Mean annual temperature estimates for the vantage paleoclimate were made based on analysis of the fossil wood. Based on a series of wood anatomy characters, a temperature range between 15.8–16.2 °C (60.4–61.2 °F). This is distinctly warmer than the modern mean annual temperature of 8.4 °C (47.1 °F).
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Acer beckianum” as extinct species of maple. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the science & nature register because the source frames it as extinct species of maple. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The date and method of observation matter as much as the stated conclusion, especially where classification or consensus has changed. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 17, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q65090898. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1961 and 1954.
Current terminology should not be projected backward without checking the classification used when the underlying evidence was created. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Acer beckianum” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.