Scientists unlock unknown details about prehistoric forests from fossils of ancient trees

From remote valleys to islands out of bounds for human beings and depths of the ocean still untouched, there are several parts of the planet that are still unexplored and are home to unseen species. As mankind continues to dig out fossils of plants and animals from bygone eras, explorers have discovered an entirety of the biosphere buried in mountain crevices. Recently, researchers have discovered evidence of an ancient forest that flourished about 390 million years back, and published its details in the Journal of the Geological Society.

The study focused on the Middle Devonian Hangman Sandstone Formation in Somerset and Devon, in Southwest England to reveal details of a time when the forest area was full of cladoxylopsid trees. “These Calamophyton trees are the oldest fossil trees ever found in Britain and represent an as yet missing part of our vegetational history,” Dr. Christopher Berry from Cardiff University’s School of Earth and Environmental Sciences explained in the journal after identifying the fossils.

Calamophytons grew up to 2-4 meters tall and had narrow trunks and wider bases that measured up to 20 cm in diameter. These trees provided shelter to a lot of invertebrate animals that dwelled on the forest floor back then. These trees had a hollow center and the experts believe that leaves that were sprouting were in the earliest stage of evolution at that time. “The record of fossil forests, where tree bases are preserved where they were living, so far dates back to those discovered in New York State, at Cairo and Gilboa at about 385 million years,” Berry noted. “Although the area of rock exposure is limited and dangerous to access, our discovery is the oldest clear example and it speaks directly to the ecology of the oldest forests 390 million years ago.”

Another fascinating research led to at least 17 cladoxylopsid tree trunks being discovered at Culver Cliff in Somerset. The fossilized tree trunks measured 5-10 cm in diameter and possibly reached up to 1.4 meters in length. This gave the experts an idea of how dense the forests used to be in prehistoric times. These ancient trees not only provided shelter to various life forms but also played an important role in shaping the "modern" riverbanks. “The Devonian period fundamentally changed life on Earth. It also changed how water and land interacted with each other since trees and other plants helped stabilize sediment through their root systems,” Professor Neil Davies of Cambridge University’s Department of Earth Sciences, who co-authored the study, revealed.

Davies further explained that these fossils have preserved information about Earth's development in a key stage. “When rivers started to operate in a fundamentally different way than they had before, becoming the great erosive force they are today," he added, as per the research journal. The study suggested that the trees that existed millions of years ago played a crucial role in dividing the water and land with the help of their tightly knit roots that held onto the soil and avoided erosion. The discoveries from the Hangman Sandstone Formation provide enough proof about the origins of terrestrial ecosystems and forests spread across major parts of the world.