'Pompeii' 300 million years in Asia

Just like the Roman city of Pompeii, a 300 million-year-old rainforest is kept intact by being buried under the volcanic ash emitted by a volcano in a prehistoric region that today is North China.

According to Physorg , a new study by botanist archaeologist Hermann Pfefferkorn of the University of Pennsylvania, USA and colleagues presented the regenerative structure of this fossil forest, giving us a clear view of the birth system. the state and climate of that period.

Forest wings, identified near Wenzhou, China. Thanks to nearby coal mining activities that exposed extremely huge strips of land, the researchers were able to survey the forest at a very large scale, 1000m ² layers of ash at three excavation sites. different close together.

Photos of the computer reconstruction of the forest 300 million
years buried under volcanic ash in China.

Botanists have identified all six species of plants including ferns on the lower level and ancient trees about 20 meters high on the high floor. They also identified a species of extinct fern family named Noeggerathiales , once found in North America and Europe but in Asia they are most popular in this area.

Experts claim that the coal layer here is about 298 million years old. This chronology falls in the beginning of the Permian (pre-dinosaurs) era, when Earth's geological plates are still moving inwards to create the supercontinent Pangea. North America and Europe are still attached and China was then the two continents.

The remarkable thing is: 'this forest is kept miraculously. We can stand right there and find a branch with leaves on the tree, and then find the next branches and the next branches. And then we found the tree of that tree itself . " Pfefferkorn stressed. The researchers also found small trees with raw branches, stems, and tops.

Because volcanic ash has completely covered a wide range of forests in just a few days, the forest's vegetation is preserved exactly as it was when it was first poured, even in places where it grew.

'The discoveries here are really new in many ways. This is the first forest to be reconstructed in Asia at any time, this is the first peat forest in this period and this is the most crowded forest of Noeggerathiales around the world. '

This good 'preserved' forest gives a clear view of the clear time of the past 300 million years ago. Because this site only offers a view of a time in the history of the earth, it alone does not help explain much about climate change on Earth, but it helps provide an extremely valuable context. treatment, Mr. Pfefferkorn said.

'This forest is like Pompeii city. Pompeii gives us a deep, detailed look into ancient Roman society, but it alone cannot tell much about Roman history. But on the other hand, it helps clarify the time before and after. This is a time capsule and therefore it helps us explain what happened before and after this period of history. "

To conduct the study, Professor Pfefferkorn collaborated with three Chinese colleagues from the Chinese Academy of Sciences.