In what may be seen as a groundbreaking discovery, researchers from the University of Binghamton in the US and the University of Cardiff in Wales recently traced the world’s most ancient forest at the bottom of an abandoned quarry near the town of Cairo (New York) in the Catskill Mountains. After examining the fossils embedded in rocks, they have claimed that the forest is 385 million years old! According to researchers, further research shall help them to get a unique window into the Earth’s distant past.

Researchers are of the opinion that the forest, which is older than the Amazon Rainforest and Japan’s Yakushima Forest, covered an area of approximately 400km in the past. Palaeobotanists have come to this conclusion only after conducting several studies on the petrified roots found embedded in the region’s rocks. The incredible discovery has unfolded the history of a time that used to exist long before the existence of human beings. One can think of the time of dinosaurs while thinking about this forest.

Researchers have also found that the ancient trees of this forest did not propagate through the release of seeds, unlike their contemporary counterparts. Instead, those trees relied on spores for reproduction! Researchers have opined that this unique characteristic adds a fascinating layer to human understanding of prehistoric ecosystems. It may be noted that fungi share a similar method of reproduction. “You are walking through the roots of ancient trees,” stressed Palaeobotanist Dr Christopher Berry of Cardiff University.

Meanwhile, researchers are still trying to find the secrets preserved in the rocks near Cairo, New York. They believe that this forest will not only deepen human understanding of Earth’s early ecosystems, but will also offer a glimpse into the fascinating world of ancient plants. It will further help understand the processes that shaped the Earth over millions of years.

In 2019, Berry told the Science magazine: “The Cairo site is very special. You are walking through the roots of ancient trees. Standing on the quarry surface we can reconstruct the living forest around us in our imagination.”

As far as other existing ancient forests are concerned, Daintree Rainforest in Australia is over 180 million years old, while Tasmania’s Tarkine Rainforest is more than 65 million years old, Poland’s Bialowieza Forest is more than 8,000 years old and Sequoia National Park in the US is over 3,000 years old. India’s Western Ghats ranges, the home to freshwater swamp forests, date back millions of years. All these forests serve as invaluable reservoirs of the history of the Earth, as they add a crucial piece to the puzzle of geological and environmental evolution of this planet.

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das