Generally speaking, larger leaves are indicative of warmer, more favorable climates.
But when fossilized leaves are measured they aren’t perfect representations of the living leaves they once were. They shrink as they dry out and fossilize, as one might expect them to. And yet, though this is readily known, most climate models don’t account for this shrinkage. Many studies and scientists have long considered such shrinkage during fossilization to be negligible. But more than 100 high school students in Arizona would beg to differ.
