Posted on 04/21/2007 10:30:21 AM PDT by fight_truth_decay
The branches of Earth's oldest tree probably waved in the breeze like a modern palm, scientists said on Wednesday, based on two intact tree fossils that help explain the evolution of forests and their influence on climate.
The 385-million-year-old fossils, which scientists believe are evidence of Earth's earliest forest trees, put to rest speculation about fossilized tree stumps discovered more than a century ago in Gilboa, New York.
Scientists believe these early forests absorbed carbon dioxide, cooling the Earth's surface.
The forests were flourishing at an important juncture in the history of life of Earth, coming shortly before the appearance of the first vertebrates -- four-legged amphibians -- that could live on dry land.
"We've solved this long-standing puzzle," said Linda VanAller Hernick, a paleontologist at the New York State Museum, who wrote about her discovery in the journal Nature.
The stumps in Gilboa were unearthed in 1870 when workers were blasting a quarry. Until now, scientists had never seen the tops of those trees.
Hernick and museum colleague Frank Mannolini discovered an intact crown and part of a tree trunk in 2004 and a year later found a 28-foot (8.5-metre) trunk portion of the same species.
Pieced together, they represent Wattieza, a tree that looked like modern-day palm with a crown of fronds that grew up to 30 feet high and reproduced through spores.
"Previously, paleobotanists thought that a tree called Archaeopteris was the oldest tree. Now we know there were tree-like plants in abundance much earlier," Hernick said in a telephone interview.
The fern-like trees are about 23 million years older than Archaeopteris, which Hernick said resembled a modern tree, with conventional branches.
Instead of leaves, the Wattieza had frond-like branches with branchlets that resembled a bottlebrush, said William Stein, a paleobiologist at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York, and co-author of the study.
For Hernick, who was inspired to become a paleontologist after viewing the Gilboa stumps as a child, the discovery offers a fair bit of personal satisfaction.
"It's kind of nice to bring this story to a close," she said.
They are wrong. Helen Thomas does not even have branches.
Guaranteed, this is not the Tree of Knowledge.
Tree? The squirrels would be very disappointed with these frondcone trees.
Archaeopteris??? i thought that was the wingless bird with hairy feathers...
What’s this all about? I’d only ever read about “fern trees.”
So now CO2 is the only thing that affects global climate?
Methinks the global-warming used-car salesmen are overplaying their hand.
Let’s see:
(a) “warming” induces greater growth of green-leafing plant life (longer temperature-beneficial growing season)
(b) greatly increasing growth of CO2 absorbing life which also tends to cool surface temperatures
therefore (a-global warming) + (b-more plant life) = (c)global cooling.
As satisfying as that simple statement is, it only works if the cycles of the Sun (which induce all major earth-temperature trends) are also ignored as if they have no affect on (a) to begin with, when in fact they have the largest affect.
A clear example of sneaking propaganda into what seems to be an otherwise factual story. All green leafed plant life absorbs carbon dioxide. Chlorophyll uses sunlight to convert CO2 to oxygen. Chlorophyll is what makes them green. The cooling statement is simply the authors opinion.
...until early profit-seeking proto-Republicans clear-cut these magnificent frond-tree forests, ignoring the heart-felt and eerily-prescient entreaties of early Democrats who wanted only to be good stewards of the earth for the benefit of future generations, etc., etc.
I’d only ever read about “fern trees.”
Kewl, I always wondered where they broadcast “Fernwood Tonight” from, didn’t know it was New York.
Archaeopteris was a very different beast from Wattieza. It was conifer-like, had leafy twigs, a large root systems and long-lived branches that grew from the side of the trunk.
Confusing for a layperson as study shows the fern/spore Archaeopteris but then the “woody” Archaeopteris tree which is conifer like.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2007/1901623.htm
ABC’s science. ;)
“The cooling statement is simply the authors opinion”.
They think they can sneak this stuff by us! Thanks for pointing it out:)
And atop the oldest trees in New York were the oldest birds in New York...pigeons.
Spore you say?
A green leafed plants absorb it but rigid dense fronds are probably more efficient at storing it. Just like succulents are more efficient at storing water. Just guessing here.
I had to look very closely too but ArchaeopterEX is the feathered dino while apparently Archaeopteris is a tree.
guess maybe i outta spring for some new glasses... 8^)
So they sucked in CO^2, and exhaled that damned toxic, horridly reactive, habitat destroying O^2?
They suicidally turned the earth’s atmosphere from a Paradisiacal warm, reducing mixture, into an incredibly noxious, cooler oxidizing atmosphere?
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