The world's oldest forest

In the US, the root systems of 385-million-year-old trees absorb CO2 from the air, significantly altering the Earth's atmosphere.

The Archaeopteris root system as seen from above. Photo: Christopher Berry — The *Archaeopteris* root system as seen from above. Photo: *Christopher Berry*

The world's oldest forest is located in an abandoned quarry near Cairo, New York. The 385-million-year-old rock formations contain fossilized roots of dozens of ancient trees. As these trees developed their root systems, they helped absorb and store carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air, significantly altering Earth's climate and leading to the atmosphere as we know it today, according to IFL Science .

Christopher Berry, a paleobotanist at Cardiff University in England, and his colleagues discovered the site in 2009. Some of the fossilized roots there are 15 cm in diameter and form a circular pattern radiating 11 m from the trunk. They appear to belong to the species Archaeopteris , a tree with large woody roots and many branches, related to modern trees, according to research published in the journal Current Biology. Previously, the oldest Archaeopteris fossils were no more than 365 million years old. The Cairo site shows that Archaeopteris trees evolved modern characteristics as early as 20 million years ago.

According to Kevin Boyce, a geologist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, trees like those in Cairo had a significant influence on the ancient climate. Their roots penetrated deep into the soil, breaking up the rocks beneath the surface. Geologists call this process "weathering." It fueled a chemical reaction that absorbed CO2 from the air and transformed it into carbonate ions in groundwater. Eventually, the groundwater flowed into the sea and was trapped within the limestone.

Partly due to weathering and its chain reaction, atmospheric CO2 levels decreased to their current levels not long after forests appeared. Tens of millions of years prior, CO2 levels were 10-15 times higher than they are today. Some studies suggest that this significant reduction in atmospheric CO2 led to a steady increase in oxygen, resulting in an atmosphere containing approximately 35% oxygen 300 million years ago. This fueled the evolution of giant insects of that era, some species with wingspans of 70 cm that lived in ancient forests.

This is not the first time researchers have discovered a primeval forest. The previous record belonged to a fossil forest in Gilboa, New York, about 40 km from Cairo, containing tree specimens 382 million years old.

An Khang (According to IFL Science/Science )

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