Paleobotanical Splendor is a celebration of the pure beauty of fossilized wood. When these images are viewed collectively, they present a visual brio of colors, shapes and compositions. Individually, however, they are distinctive because their earth–tones, bi–dimensionality and geometric shapes evoke the painterly qualities normally associated with abstract and non–objective art. In the tragic beauty of life forms long extinct there is also a foreboding reminder of life’s precariousness and our own fragility. With high magnification and light refraction, recurring patterns and saturated mineral pigments are abstracted. Secret worlds are revealed, with misty pools, gem encrustations and fractured rainbows. What soon becomes apparent is the mineral components of some specimens are exceedingly colorful, and when light is diffracted by internal structures, other worldly images are formed. The images from this series are a true union of ART & SCIENCE and a reminder that extinction is a part of life.