Plant fossils
Earth’s oldest forest discovered in southern England
A modern forest. In contrast, the vegetation whose fossilized remains were found in England consisted not of trees but of plants resembling ferns.
© SuperStock / Imago Images
Forests have covered the earth for millions of years. Researchers in England have now made a sensational discovery that goes back far into the prehistoric times of our earth.
Researchers have discovered evidence of a forest on the English coast that grew there at least 386 million years ago. The find, made from fossilized Plants and their remains are currently considered to be the oldest evidence of a forest on earth, as researchers led by Professor Neil Davies from the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Cambridge report in the “Journal of the Geological Society”. The news was picked up by a number of media outlets worldwide.
The fossils are even four million years older than those that were unearthed some time ago in the US state of New York, as the science magazine “Spektrum.de” highlights.
But how can one imagine a forest that is even older than the dinosaurs that first roamed the globe around 235 million years ago in the Mesozoic period? According to the reports on the find, you have to imagine the vegetation at the time as a palm grove. The dominant plants back then were more closely related to ferns and instead of leaves had many thin branches with which they carried out photosynthesis. The trunks of these plants were hollow inside. And overall, the forests were lower than we know them today – a maximum of around four meters high, as the scientists found out from the fossils.
Forests from Earth’s prehistoric times have been identified using petrified fossils
Specifically, the finds come from the coasts of what are now the counties of Devon and Sussex in the south and southwest of England. Devon is also the name of a period in ancient times into which the finds are classified. According to the researchers, it was a time when life increasingly spread from water to earth.
The researchers from the University of Cambridge found a number of fossilized remains of plants from the period, as well as their roots and trunks. The discovery surprised the team, reports “Spektrum.de”. There, in the region around the small Victorian seaside resort of Minehead in Somerset, people did not expect to find the remains of such an ancient forest in the sandstone cliffs.
Sources: “Journal of the Geological Society” / University of Cambridge“Spektrum.de“, Deutschlandfunk
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