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

By: Ben Campbell | Last updated: Aug 22, 2024

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.

Scientists meticulously examined the various fossils, and the results were nothing short of astounding. This rare discovery has provided a unique window into a mysterious period of Earth’s history.

The Evolution of Trees on Earth

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.

Advertisement
A dense forest of coniferous trees with vibrant green needles on a steep, rocky shoreline. The forest floor is covered with brown pine needles and the trees are leaning towards the water's edge

Source: Wikimedia Commons

A recent study conducted on several tree fossils unearthed in the Canadian province of New Brunswick has allowed researchers to gain insight into what the work looked like when forests first began to emerge.

Time Capsules of the Past

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.

Advertisement
A photograph of a petrified tree stump

Source: Wikimedia

Speaking on the discovery, Robert Gastaldo, a paleontologist and sedimentologist, said, “They are time capsules, literally little windows into deep-time landscapes and ecosystems.”

350 Million-Year-Old Tree Specimen

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.

Advertisement
A photograph of a petrified tree stump

Source: Wikimedia

According to Gastaldo, who led the study, few fossils this old have ever been discovered. He added, “There are only five or six trees that we can document, at least in the Paleozoic, that were preserved with its crown intact.”

Researchers Left Gobsmacked After Discovering Fossilized Tree

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.

Advertisement
A photograph of a shocked researcher

Source: Freepik

However, the discovery in Canada is the entirety of a tree, which may have been up to 15 feet tall, leaving the researchers “gobsmacked.”

Excavating the Fossilized Trees

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

Advertisement
A photograph of an archaeologist working at a site

Source: Wikimedia

Researchers dubbed the species “Sanfordiacaulis” in honor of Laurie Sandford, who owned the quarry where the fossilized remains were unearthed.

Advertisement

The Structure of the Plant

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

Advertisement
A photograph of a tree towering over others in Asia

Source: Wikimedia

These trees stood around 8.7 feet tall and grew leaves that reached 9.8 feet long, extending out of the trunk in “tightly compressed spirals,” according to the study, published Friday (Feb. 2) in the journal Current Biology.

Advertisement

5-Foot-Long Leaves Preserved on the Tree’s Trunk

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.

Advertisement
A photograph of a fossilized leaf

Source: Wikimedia

The most complete fossil, encased in a large sandstone boulder, boasts over 250 leaves preserved around the trunk. Some of the leaves were over five feet in length.

Advertisement

Evolving for the Sun

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

Advertisement
A digital illustration of the sun as seen from space

Source: Freepik

Their shorter stature also served a purpose, according to the researchers behind the study. These plants are the earliest examples of smaller trees growing beneath the canopy of taller trees.

Advertisement

Fossilized Tree Reminds Researchers of a Dr. Seuss Novel

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.

Advertisement
A photograph of Dr. Seuss as he draws an illustration

Source: Wikimedia

“You know in ‘The Lorax,’ the trees have these big pom-poms at the top and narrow trunks? These probably have a similar structure. You have this massive crown at the top, and then it does narrow and paper into this very small trunk,” King said. “It’s a very Dr. Seuss-looking tree. It’s a weird and wonderful idea of what this thing could look like.”

Advertisement

Enormous Earthquake Leads to Fossilization of Trees

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.

Advertisement
A photograph of a destroyed forest

Source: Wikimedia

“These trees were alive when the earthquake happened. They were buried very quickly, very rapidly after that, at the bottom of the lake, and then the lake (went) back to normal,” Stimson said.

Advertisement

A Better Understanding of How Early Forests Evolved

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.

Advertisement
A photograph taken within a large forest

Source: Wikimedia

“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,” he added.

Advertisement

Short-Lived Reign of Sanfordiacaulis

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

Advertisement
Large leaves of a fern tree pictured in a forest

Source: Wikimedia

He said, “We do not see this architecture of plants again,” following the culmination of this period at the end of the Paleozoic Era.

Advertisement

Sanfordiacaulis Fails to Adapt

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

Advertisement
A photograph of a large deforested region

Source: Wikimedia

According to Stimson, this is evidence of a “failed experiment of science and evolution. We’re really starting to paint that picture of what life was like 350 million years ago.”

Advertisement

The Growth Architecture

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.”

Advertisement
A photograph of a tree hunter gazing at a tall red cedar

Source: @ancientforestalliance/Instagram

This includes a small number of tree ferns, gymnosperms and flowering plants. The difference in modern plants is that they carry fewer leaves in their crowns.

Advertisement

Oddballs of the Ancient World

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

Advertisement
A photograph of a large tree

Source: Wikimedia

“Such oddballs existed in deep time in other plant groups that lived long before flowering plants appeared on the planet, but we don’t have clues to their oddities unless a very rare event happened to preserve the plant in its entirety.”

Advertisement

Diversity in the Devonian Period

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.

Advertisement
A photograph of several trees in a forest

Source: Wikimedia

“The evolution of the plant kingdom underwent many different experimental forms that were successful for some million or more years of time, but didn’t survive the test of time,” he said.

Advertisement

A Different Kind of Plant

“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

Advertisement
A photograph of two researchers working in their lab

Source: Freepik

“We typically get bits and pieces of plants, or mineralized tree trunks, from Romer’s gap. We don’t have many whole plants we can reconstruct. This one we can.”

Advertisement

Other Ancient Trees

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.

Advertisement
A photograph of several large trees found in a forest

Source: Wikimedia

It was believed to be one of the first plants on Earth to have a tree-like form. Like the Sanfordiacaulis, Eospermatopteris didn’t look like modern trees but more like ferns.

Advertisement

The Look of This Ancient Plant

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.

Advertisement
A close-up view of a brown tree trunk and its rings.

Source: Volodymyr Hryshchenko/Unsplash

The plant did not have flattened leaves. Instead, whorls of forked branchlets covered the branches.

Advertisement

Ancient Ferns

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

Advertisement
Green Leaf Photography

Source: Arunodhai V/Pexels

Similar to modern ferns, Eospermatopteris reproduced by releasing spores into the air instead of forming speeds. This was an early hint at what would one day become seed plants.

Advertisement

The First Plant with Leaves

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

Advertisement
Green Leafed Plants

Source: Kelly/Pexels

Researchers found that this tree had a strikingly modern underground root system, enabling it to continuously expand and support the growth of a long-lived, larger tree type that may have dominated the local forest ecosystem.

Advertisement

Not the First Tree Fragment

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.

Advertisement
A photograph of a researcher standing at the Amnya site

Source: E. Dubovtseva

They found the fossil’s trunk, branches, and partially preserved leaves three-dimensionally pressed into stone.

Advertisement

Expanding Our Knowledge

“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.

Advertisement
A photograph of a researcher writing at his desk

Source: Freepik

This discovery opens a window to the past and sparks interest in uncovering more discoveries in the area.

Advertisement