A Lost Forest From 22 Million Years Ago Has Suddenly Resurfaced

[Judi Lynn]

Here's how it disappeared—and came back.

BY TIM NEWCOMB
PUBLISHED: JAN 10, 2024 9:46 AM EST

• Researchers studying fossilized wood on Barro Colorado Island in the Panama Canal recently discovered that an Early Miocene mangrove forest once covered the area.
  
  
• A volcanic flow likely buried and fossilized the trees in a single event.
  
  
• Those trees represent a species of mangrove previously unknown to science.;/ul]
  Researchers studying on Barro Colorado Island in the Panama Canal recently uncovered an entire lost ancient mangrove forest over 22 million years old, thanks to the discovery of the fossilized—and previously unknown to science—Sonneratioxylon barrocoloradoensis mangrove species. The team published a study documenting their discovery in the journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology.
  
  According to the paper, adiometric analysis of the fossils dates the mangrove forest—including the 121 fossilized wood specimens located on the island—to the Aquitanian stage of Early Miocene. During this period, central Panama was part of a long and narrow peninsula connected to North America but and separated from South America, and was host to intense volcanic activity.
  
  That volcanic activity was the likely demise of the forest. Sedimentary and rock analyses suggest that the fossilized trees once grew in either river or ocean environments until a single volcanic event buried the forest.
  
  Researchers from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute said in the study that the wood anatomy of these mangroves indicates that they are similar to a type of mangrove native to Southeast Asia. The team named this newly discovered species after the island where it was found, and believe that S. barrocoloradoensis generally grew to a height of 82 feet tall—although, the tallest specimens could stretch upward of 131 feet, easily outpacing modern mangrove forests in terms of towering reach.
  
  More:
  https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a46287137/lost-forest-reappears/

[DFW]

1. Fabulous discovery!

One wonders how many more are out there waiting to be found?

[Judi Lynn]

2. Newer old forest looms into view: 390 million-year-old fossilized forest is the oldest ever discovered

390 million-year-old fossilized forest is the oldest ever discovered
News
By Sascha Pare last updated March 8, 2024

Researchers have discovered a fossil forest with small, palm-like trees and arthropod tracks dating back to the Middle Devonian.



Illustration of Calamophyton trees.
An illustration of what the trees in Earth's earliest forest may have looked like. (Image credit: Peter Giesen/Chris Berry)


Fossilized trees discovered by chance in southwest England belong to Earth's earliest-known forest, new research has found. The 390 million-year-old fossils supplant the Gilboa fossil forest in New York state, which dates back 386 million years, as the world's oldest known forest.

The new discovery highlights differences between the two ecosystems, suggesting forests went from being relatively primitive to well established over the course of just a few million years, said Neil Davies, the lead author of a new study published Feb. 23 in the Journal of the Geological Society.

"Why it's important — broadly — is it ticks the boxes of being the oldest fossil forest," Davies, a professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Cambridge in the U.K., told Live Science. The finding is also remarkable because it reveals stark differences between the complex array of ancient plants found at Gilboa and the newly discovered forest, which appears to have hosted just one type of plant, Davies said.

This now-extinct type of plants, known as cladoxylopsids, is thought to be closely related to ferns and sphenopsids (horsetails). "They look like palm trees, but they're in no way related to palm trees," Davies said. "They've got a long central stem and what look like palm fronds coming off, but those palm fronds aren't really leaves — they're actually just lots of twiglets."

More:
https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/plants/fossilized-forest-unearthed-in-the-uk-is-the-oldest-ever-found-at-390-million-years-old