"Oldest Forest In The World" Found In Upstate New York

[TTL News 313]

Quote

 

An ancient forest in Upstate New York has left behind big impressions, causing scientists to declare it the “world’s oldest forest.”

According to Binghamton University, the forest is located in Cairo, New York and was first discovered in 2009 by Charles Ver Straeten, curator of sedimentary rocks at the New York State Museum. 

Found at the bottom of an abandoned municipal highway department quarry in the Catskills, traces of roots belonging to the oldest trees in the world were found beneath a ridge and forest pool 387 million years ago. This recorded evidence meant that the site in Cairo is two million years older than the Gilboa fossil forest, just down the road.

Since its discovery, paleobotanists from Binghamton University and the University of Cardiff in Wales have been studying the fossilized woody roots of the extremely early plants characteristic of the Middle Devonian period. By tracing root impressions, researchers have been able to map out the world’s oldest foresttree by tree.

 

See the rest of the article here.