This Ancient Tree Gives Researchers a Look at Earth’s First Forest

Researchers have stumbled across the remains of several ancient trees in Canada dating back hundreds of millions of years. The fossilized specimens may provide valuable insight into how the world’s earliest forest began to emerge.

Experts believe trees emerged on Earth hundreds of millions of years ago. However, fossils dating back to this era have been difficult to find, and scientists have been left somewhat in the dark regarding the evolution of trees.

Researchers stumbled upon the fossilized remains of five trees buried alive by an enormous earthquake that occurred in the region around 350 million years ago, according to a study published in the journal Current Biology.

The study’s authors, Olivia King and Matthew Stimson, discovered the first fossil back in 2017. One specimen was discovered with branches and leaves attached to its trunk.

Gastaldo, a professor of geology at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, explained that many of the fossilized remains of trees previously discovered are relatively small in size, often being the stump or root system.

The first specimen was successfully excavated around seven years ago. Following this, further fossils were recovered from the same vicinity.

The new discovery reveals a dense canopy of more than 250 levels, crowded around a top that was 30 inches of unbranched tree trunks.

After meticulously examining the remains of the ancient trees, researchers suggest they bear a resemblance to modern-day palms of ferns. However, the latter didn’t appear for another 300 million years.

Sanfordiacaulis were likely to evolve this spiral layout to maximize the amount of sunlight the leaves capture for photosynthesis.

King, a research associate at the New Brunswick Museum, says another unusual aspect researchers have noticed is their resemblance to trees from some of Dr. Seuss’s works.

The scientists explain that the trees were likely fossilized as a result of a “catastrophic” earthquake that caused enormous landslides in the region, burying the trees alive at the bottom of a lake.

The study has opened a window into a period in which almost no tree fossils have been recorded, a significant leap in our understanding of early forest evolution.

According to Stimson, the Sanfordiacaulis reign was short-lived. It thrived during the early Carboniferous period when plants transitioned from water to land.

The Sanfordiacaulis’s failure to survive following the cataclysmic event showcases its inability to adapt to the conditions of the region.

The reconstruction of these plants “distorts our sense of how trees are organized and grow,” Gastaldo said. “Their growth architecture is similar to but distinctly different from, two tree models found in today’s tropics.”

“We consider quiver trees and baobabs as oddballs relative to the rest of the angiosperms [flowering plants],” he said.

Plants were extremely diverse during the Devonian period and the Carboniferous period, according to the study. This strange fossil could be an example of an evolutionary experiment by Mother Nature that eventually failed.

“This is a totally new and different kind of plant,” Patricia Gensel, a biologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an author of the study, tells the New York Times

Before researchers discovered Sanfordiacaulis, they uncovered the oldest known trees in fossils in the late 19th century. The Gilboa trees, called Eospermatopteris, date back to the Devonian period.

The Eospermatopteris, which featured no wood and grew to be about 30 feet tall, had a slender trunk topped with at least eight branches that spread out from the apex.

The plant belongs to the extinct group Cladoxylopsida, considered an intermediate between early land plants and the lineage that includes ferns and horsetails.

The first plant to form leaves was the Archaeopteris. The plant was a large woody plant that formed from secondary tissues.

This isn’t the first time that fossilized tree fragments have been found in the area. What makes the Sanfrodiacaulis different from the other fossils is that it was intact.

“The new fossils are a milestone in our understanding of how early forest structure evolved, eventually leading to the complex rainforest architectures that support most of Earth’s living biodiversity,” Peter Wilf, a geoscientist and paleobotanist at Pennsylvania State University, who was not involved with the study, tells CNN.