Upstate New York fossil forest from 385 million B.C. could be world's oldest

[Judi Lynn]

AFP-JIJI

DEC 20, 2019

Scientists have discovered what could be the world’s oldest forest, potentially rich in information on the link between forests and climate change, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Current Biology.

The title of world’s oldest fossil forest had previously been given to a site in Gilboa, in the Catskills region of upstate New York, dating back about 385 million years.

The new site is an old quarry in the same region, just 25 miles (40 kilometers) farther east, near the town of Cairo.

After 10 years of samples and studies, an international team of 11 scientists concluded the quarry had once housed a forest two to 3 million years older and more varied in types of trees.

As at Gilboa, scientists found traces of the primitive tree type Eospermatopteris. Somewhat similar to a palm tree, it has a thick bottom and crown of branches at the top, though no leaves.

More:
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/12/20/world/science-health-world/ny-fossil-forest-may-be-worlds-oldest/#.XfxwZUdKjDc

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FIRST TREES -- LIKE, EVER

For millions of years, the tallest plants on Earth were naked twigs that grew only inches to a few feet high with their roots in water or boggy soil. The very next phase known is the Gilboa forest, where Eospermatopteris stood 30 feet tall and boasted many branches frilled with fine leaflike filaments.

This sudden surge in plant height may have been a “race to the sun” as plants evolved more competitive shapes that helped them avoid the shade cast by close-growing neighbors. The tallest Gilboa “trees” were palmlike in shape, with lightweight, woodless trunks and many buttressing roots that made a conelike “foot” which propped the plants upright on solid ground. They left no modern descendants.

https://www.victorleshyk.com/gilboapage.html

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Posted on 1 March 2012
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New light on ancient trees

It’s a basic question about the evolution of life: When was the first forest, and what lived there? For almost a century, the Riverside quarry in Gilboa, near Albany, New York, has been considered the grand-daddy of fossil forests, with hundreds of tree stumps dating from about 390 million years ago.



Courtesy Frank Mannolini
The palm-like Eospermatopteris tree dominates this portrayal of the Gilboa forest about 390 million years ago.

These strange Eospermatopteris trees contained no wood, but some stood more than 10 meters tall, says William Stein, an associate professor of biology at the nearby University of Binghamton.

Although Eospermatopteris did not have leaves, it was topped by a crown of branches.

The development of trees is a milestone in the development of life on land — as trees offer habitat for animals, alter the soil and landscape, and affect the atmosphere by using up carbon dioxide.

The Riverside quarry was excavated to supply stone for a dam in the 1920s, and it was at that site that paleontologist Winifred Goldring studied fossils of big, ancient trees. Ever since, her work has been considered essential evidence for arboreal evolution.

More:
https://whyfiles.org/2012/first-forest-new-details-emerge/index.html

[KY_EnviroGuy]

1. More science to challenge our imagination.

Trees with no woody parts or leaves but rather branches described as "frilled with fine leaflike filaments".

From the Whyfiles page:

The tree is comparable to a modern palm, Stein says, with “branches that act like fronds; they are very large structures that allow photosynthesis and reproduction.”

Those branches are studded with branchlets — but no leaves — that pick up energy from the sun, Stein says. “All photosynthesis takes place on the branchlets that surround the frond; there is a hand-like structure with four fingers and hundreds of little branchlets surrounding it.”

Leaves are not the only tree feature that’s missing, Stein says. “They are without the standard woody tissue you would expect in a tree of this size, and we don’t really understand how it works. Our best guess is that they are hollow, like an overgrown bamboo, with a very extensive outer structure that is thicker in the larger trees.”

Eospermatopteris was known from the 1920s, but the real surprise was fossils of a large, woody rhizome plant about as big around as an anaconda. (Botanical blip: A rhizome is a vine-like plant that runs along the ground.)

This was no average rhizome — but rather a monster up to 15 centimeters in diameter. At the site — a coastal location that repeatedly flooded — the rhizome apparently cohabited with Eospermatopteris, Stein says. “We can see it growing around the root mounds, which indicates that they were well aware of the tree’s presence.”

Thanks, Judi Lynn. Good composition on the subject. That illustrator Leshyk's work is very impressive.....

[empedocles]

2. Thank you both

[defacto7]

3. Very interesting.

But I don't think a BC, BCE, CE or AD designation is realistic when talking hundreds of millions of years.