Scientists have discovered the oldest fossilised forest known on Earth, a new study shows.
It has been discovered on the high sandstone cliffs in South West England’s Devon and Somerset Coast and dates from 390 million years ago.
Research from the Universities of Cambridge and Cardiff says they are the oldest fossilised trees ever found in Britain and the oldest known forest fossils on Earth.
The fossils, which date back to the Devonian period, are roughly 4 million years older than the previous record holder in New York.
Known as Calamophyton, the trees resemble palm trees that grew two to four metres tall, but their trunks were thin and hollow, while the branches did not have any leaves.
The research, published in the Journal of the Geological Society, shows how trees helped shape landscapes and stabilised riverbanks and coastlines millions of years ago.
Little known about world’s earliest forests
Professor Neil Davies from Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences, the study’s first author, said the forest differed from what is seen today.
“This was a pretty weird forest – not like any forest you would see today,” Professor Davies said.
“There wasn’t any undergrowth to speak of and grass hadn’t yet appeared, but there were lots of twigs dropped by these densely packed trees, which had a big effect on the landscape.”
He said little was known about the world’s earliest forests.
“The evidence contained in these fossils preserves a key stage in Earth’s development, when rivers started to operate in a fundamentally different way than they had before, becoming the great erosive force they are today,” Professor Davies said.
“People sometimes think that British rocks have been looked at enough, but this shows that revisiting them can yield important new discoveries.”
The study’s co-author, Chistopher Berry from Cardiff’s School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, said he could identify the trees immediately after years of work in the area.
“It was amazing to see them so near to home. But the most revealing insight comes from seeing, for the first time, these trees in the positions where they grew,” Dr Berry said.
“It is our first opportunity to look directly at the ecology of this earliest type of forest, to interpret the environment in which Calamophyton trees were growing, and to evaluate their impact on the sedimentary system.”
The researchers found fossilised plants and plant debris, fossilised tree logs, traces of roots and sedimentary structures, preserved within the sandstone.