User:Kevmin/sandbox/Paleobiota of the Latah Formation

Numerous fossil plants and insects have been recovered from the formation and described. The Latah Formation includes the Clarkia fossil beds lagerstätte in Idaho, which are currently understood to be Early Barstovian in age. One unnamed Sciuridae fossil was described in 2018, and fish belonging to the salmonid, cyprinid, and centrarchid groups are known.

Plants
The initial taxonomic work on the flora was undertaken by Frank Knowlton with assistance from diatom specialist Albert Mann and bryologist Elizabeth Britton. Their combined work was published as a supplemental chapter to the initial 1926 descriptive work by Joseph Pardee and Kirk Bryan. After Knowltons death in November 1926, his revision of the Latah flora was taken over by Edward W. Berry who also erroneously included strata of the much older Klondike Mountain Formation around Republic, Washington. This error was noted and corrected in later works by Roland W. Brown. Ralph W. Cheney and Daniel I. Axelrod broke the Latah into four major florules, Grand Coulee and Spokane in Washington plus Coeur d'Alene and Whitebird in Idaho, while noting several "miscellaneous" sites as well.

Algae
An initial survey of Latah Formation diatoms was conduced by Albert Mann at the behest of Frank Hall Knowlton. Based on sample material recovered from a well 0.25 mi west of Mica, Washington, itself southeast of Spokane, Mann identified a large number of diatomaceous species, including 10 new species. Mann noted the diatoms appear to have lived under stressed conditions caused by caustic water, with many of the specimens showing malformed shapes or blurred ornamentations. The typical cause of this in diatoms is a high concentration of dissolved mineral salts in the water body.