Excavation of 380 million year old fossil forest

The forest is located in the town of Gilboa, New York (USA) today excavated for the first time in the 1920s. But recently, a construction project helped discover the bottom of the forest that existed 380 million years in the Devon century.

The lowest floor of the fossil forest has at least 3 types of old trees. The first is the Gilboa tree, which was previously thought to be the only tree in the forest. Mining workers have taken samples from this area since fossil trees were first found. The tree is very tall and looks like a palm tree today, with a wide spread on the tree.

Structure of ancient forest. (Source: Livescience)

But in addition to the Gilboa tree there is a very strange pattern. In the middle of the Gilboa trees are shrubs with a foliage about 15cm wide. The tree seems to have relied on the Gilboa.

The researchers also found a lycopsid tree, a plant that grows very strongly in the carbon century, about 300-300 million years ago. The discovery of two more species of trees in the ancient forest changed the minds of paleontologists. Researchers previously thought that this was a swamp, but scientists today believe this forest is located on a flat coastal field. It was buried and stored when the river changed, causing a huge amount of sand to cover the entire forest floor.

The Devonian Period is the time when plants began to grow from small trees, scattered into large trees, forming forests. Plants clear carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, so during this period, carbon dioxide may be 15% less than it is today.