Scientists have discovered the world’s oldest forest—and its radical impact on life
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/12/scientists-have-discovered-world-s-oldest-forest-and-its-radical-impact-life
Source: By Colin Barras, Science Magazine.
Excerpt: Scientists have discovered the world’s oldest forest in an abandoned quarry near Cairo, New York. The 385-million-year-old rocks contain the fossilized woody roots of dozens of ancient trees. The find marks a turning point in Earth’s history. When trees evolved these roots, they helped pull carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air and lock it away, radically shifting the planet’s climate and leading to the atmosphere we know today. Trees like those at Cairo had a big effect on the ancient climate, says Kevin Boyce, a geoscientist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. Deep roots penetrate and break up the rocks within and below the soil. Geologists call this processing “weathering,” and it triggers chemical reactions that pull CO2 from the atmosphere and turn it into carbonate ions in groundwater. This ultimately runs off into the sea and is locked away as limestone. Partly because of weathering and its knock-on effects, atmospheric CO2 levels dropped to modern levels soon after the appearance of woody forests. A few tens of millions of years earlier they had been 10 to 15 times higher than today. Some research suggests the removal of so much atmospheric CO2 led directly to a sustained rise in oxygen levels, with the atmosphere containing about 35% oxygen by 300 million years ago. This, in turn, may have led to the evolution of gigantic insects at that time, some with wing spans of 70 centimeters, which may have lived in the ancient forests....
Source: By Colin Barras, Science Magazine.
Excerpt: Scientists have discovered the world’s oldest forest in an abandoned quarry near Cairo, New York. The 385-million-year-old rocks contain the fossilized woody roots of dozens of ancient trees. The find marks a turning point in Earth’s history. When trees evolved these roots, they helped pull carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air and lock it away, radically shifting the planet’s climate and leading to the atmosphere we know today. Trees like those at Cairo had a big effect on the ancient climate, says Kevin Boyce, a geoscientist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. Deep roots penetrate and break up the rocks within and below the soil. Geologists call this processing “weathering,” and it triggers chemical reactions that pull CO2 from the atmosphere and turn it into carbonate ions in groundwater. This ultimately runs off into the sea and is locked away as limestone. Partly because of weathering and its knock-on effects, atmospheric CO2 levels dropped to modern levels soon after the appearance of woody forests. A few tens of millions of years earlier they had been 10 to 15 times higher than today. Some research suggests the removal of so much atmospheric CO2 led directly to a sustained rise in oxygen levels, with the atmosphere containing about 35% oxygen by 300 million years ago. This, in turn, may have led to the evolution of gigantic insects at that time, some with wing spans of 70 centimeters, which may have lived in the ancient forests....