Scientists Discovered a Fossilized Forest in England

At over 390 million years old, it’s the newest, oldest forest ever found.

Photo by John Thomas on Unsplash

I’m a Pacific Northwest native, which means I’m a child of the forest. It’s where I grew up exploring, playing, and learning. There’s no place in the world I feel more connected to Nature than in a forest. The vast deserts, oceans, and soaring mountains all leave me in wonder, but they also instill a different sort of energy.

All the other natural entities feel immense but singular. Meanwhile, forests are like us. They have communities made of individuals that depend on relationships and diversity. Perhaps that’s why I was so excited to learn that scientists recently stumbled upon the newest, oldest known forest.

The Discovery

Expert in field-based sedimentary geology and University of Cambridge professor in the Department of Earth Sciences, Neil Davies and colleagues at Cardiff University set out to the Hangman Sandstone Formation along the coastline of southwest England intending to examine sediment but ended up finding far more than they expected.

There, on the dramatic sandstone cliffs — the highest sea cliffs in England, some only accessible by boat — were fossilized trees belonging to the planet’s oldest-known forest…