Millions of years ago, the debris from old trees changed the course of some ancient rivers. While dinosaur fossils usually get most of the hype, uncovering plant fossils is actually crucial for understanding the long-gone ecosystems of the past.
Discovery of World's Oldest Forest
A team of scientists discovered the fossilized remains of an ancient forest which once stretched across the north coast of Devon and Somerset in the UK. The trees, identified as Calamophyton, are thought to have grown as part of an extensive forest which covered the east coast of the Old Red Sandstone continent.
The fossils were discovered by experts from Cambridge University and were identified at Cardiff University. The petrified remains show incomplete trunks up to 79 inches (2 meters) long accompanied by small branches.
The record of fossil forests includes tree bases which were preserved where they were living. Analysis of the remains revealed that the fossils are about 390 million years old. This makes the forest four to five million years older than the previous record holder at Cairo, New York in the US.
A Lasting Legacy
The fossils were identified to be those of a pioneering type of tree called cladoxylopsids. These are an extinct fern-like group of plants which are geologically short-lived. They are also believed to be closely related to ferns and sphenopsids, both of which still have living members at present.
The Calamophyton has a lot of differences with the kinds of trees that populate our planet today. Instead of solid wood, their trunks were hollow in the center and contain a ring of woody supporting strands around the outside. Their branches did not also have leaves, but were covered in hundreds of twig-like structures.
Compared to their descendants, the trees were also much shorter, measuring only 79 to 157 inches (two to four meters). As they grew, the Calamophyton shed their lower branches and dropped lots of vegetation litter which supported invertebrates living on the forest floor. The shape and forms of the trees taken together strongly suggest that these Calamophyton were standing alongside a raised bank near a small river channel.
The researchers suggest that cladoxylopsids dominated terrestrial ecosystems for about 5 million years before the emergence of more modern woody trees 385 million years ago. The findings provide new insights into the evolution of trees and the important role they played in shaping the world we live in today.
The forest also dates back to the Devonian period, a crucial epoch for the expansion of terrestrial life. This period saw the appearance of seed-bearing plants as well as the establishment of arthropods as the earliest terrestrial animals. The presence of the ancient trees unveils the crucial role played by early vegetation in shaping landscapes, fortifying coastlines, and stabilizing riverbanks during a time in history when life was rapidly spreading onto land.
According to Dr. Christopher Berry, one who identified the fossils, the Calamophyton trees are the oldest fossil trees ever discovered in Britain. They also represent a missing part of the Earth's vegetational history.
The researchers also theorize that the North Devon and Somerset site might have been located nearer Belgium and Germany. It probably got relocated along a huge geological fault during the Carboniferous period when Africa collided with Europe due to crustal compression and faulting.
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