Sunday 6 May 2012

World's Largest 'Fossil Forest' Found In US - via Simon Reames


Scientists have found a 300-million-year-old subterranean 'fossil forest' in the US, thought to be more than 50 times bigger than anything of its kind previously discovered.

Researchers uncovered the forest, which is believed to extend for up to 100 miles, encased in shale above coal seams in the state of Illinois.
Complete trees, delicate ferns and even cockroach wings were fossilised during the carboniferous "coal age" after global warming caused rising water levels, which are believed to have flooded forests and choked them with sediment.
The forest is entombed in eight working coal mines in depths that vary from 250ft to 800ft below ground level.
Palaeontologist Dr Howard Falcon-Lang, from Royal Holloway, who explored the site, told Sky News Online: "This is the largest fossil forest ever discovered, preserved over tens of square kilometres.
"It's from a time when North America and Europe lay on the equator and were covered by steamy tropical rainforests.
"The fossils are spectacular and shed light on an amazing 'lost world' of the Earth's first rainforests."


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