Perfect Fossilized Forest
By tony leather, 16th Jul 2012 | Follow this author
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Posted in WikinutNewsEnvironment
Volcanic ash apparently buried a large area of forest in only a few days, so that the plants were preserved, in many cases in the exact locations where they grew, and exactly as they were at that time.
Perfect Fossilized Forest
In what archeologists believe must have been a Pompeii-like eruption of pyroclastic ash, a northern Chinese , 300-million-year-old tropical forest was preserved in stunning clarity. Located near Wuda, China, the site is truly unique, giving as it does a glorious snapshot of a moment in ancient time.
Volcanic ash apparently buried a large area of forest in only a few days, so that the plants were preserved, in many cases in the exact locations where they grew, and exactly as they were at that time.
Researchers there find branches with leaves attached, and even stumps from the same trees, as well some smaller trees with leaves, branches, trunk and cones intact, preserved in their entirety. Nearby coal-mining activities were responsible for unearthing large tracts of rock, so the size of study plots is unusually large.
Forest2
The ecologists were able to examine 1,000 square metres of the ash layer at three separate locations in an area thought large enough to characterize local paleo-ecology meaningfully, the existence of the coal-beds a legacy of those peat-depositing, ancient tropical forests, the peat over time transforming into coal.
Able to date the ash layer to 298 million years or so ago, the researchers realized that was the beginning the Permian geologic period, during which Earth’s continental plates were still moving to form super-continent Pangea, the climate then comparable to that of today.
Those involved mapped the fossilized plants they encountered in all three sites, identifying six groups of trees. Lower canopy Tree ferns were overshadowed by much taller trees up to 80 feet tall. They found nearly complete specimens of Noeggerathiales trees, now extinct spore-bearing trees, relatives of ferns.
The three sites differed from one another in types of plant composition discovered, working with painter Ren Yugao to depict accurate reconstructions of all the amazing plant discoveries that the three sites revealed to them.
The first such Asian forest reconstruction, for any time interval, of a peat forest with Noeggerathiales as a dominant group, the site captures no more than an instant in the history of the planet, and by itself cannot explain how climate change affected life on Earth, but helps provide valuable context.
Forest3
Those involved mapped the fossilized plants they encountered in all three sites, identifying six groups of trees. Lower canopy Tree ferns were overshadowed by much taller trees up to 80 feet tall. They found nearly complete specimens of Noeggerathiales trees, now extinct spore-bearing trees, relatives of ferns.
The three sites differed from one another in types of plant composition discovered, working with painter Ren Yugao to depict accurate reconstructions of all the amazing plant discoveries that the three sites revealed to them.
The first such Asian forest reconstruction, for any time interval, of a peat forest with Noeggerathiales as a dominant group, the site captures no more than an instant in the history of the planet, and by itself cannot explain how climate change affected life on Earth, but helps provide valuable context.
Comments
17th Jul 2012 (#)
Tony yet another stunning article have shared with the world
Best Wishes
Steve
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