Vast Fossil Forest in U.S.Shows Destruction During Warming Period

The largest fossil forest ever discovered, spread across 50 coal mines under Kentucky and Illinois, reveals how an intense period of global warming brought about the destruction of a thriving tropical forest, according to a British scientist. The six sections of petrified forest, covering an underground area of 39 square miles, show that before an abrupt warming trend 306 million years ago the forest was composed of huge club moss trees and large ferns known as horsetails. After the drastic warming, this larger vegetation was replaced by smaller “weedy ferns,” according to Howard Falcon-Long of the University of Bristol. Addressing the British Association Science Festival in Liverpool, he said that the swift warming likely placed great stress on the forest and pushed it over a threshold that led to the jungle’s destruction. Should human-induced warming bring about a sharp rise in temperatures, Falcon-Long said, the destruction of the fossil forest “points to the fate of the Amazon.”