世界上最古老的化石森林在纽约被发现

世界上最古老的化石森林在纽约被发现

When researchers were exploring an abandoned quarry in Cairo in the Catskills region of New York, they came across an elaborate fossilized root system on the site. They discovered that the labyrinth of snaking tree roots was 386 million years old and belonged to dozens of ancient trees.

当研究人员在纽约卡茨基尔地区开罗的一个废弃采石场进行勘探时，他们在现场发现了一个复杂的根系化石。他们发现蜿蜒曲折的树根迷宫有3.86亿年的历史，属于几十棵古树。

Photo: William Stein and Christopher Berry

"The Cairo site is very special," team member Christopher Berry, a paleobotanist at Cardiff University in the United Kingdom, told Science. "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."

“开罗遗址非常特别，”研究小组成员、英国卡迪夫大学的古植物学家克里斯托弗·贝里告诉《科学》杂志。“你正在穿过古老的树根。站在采石场的地面上，我们可以在想象中重建周围的森林。”

Berry and her team first discovered the roots in 2009 and have been working to analyze all the fossils on the site. Some of the roots are nearly 6 inches (15 centimeters) in diameter and spread out into web-like patterns that are 36 feet (11 meters) wide.

贝瑞和她的团队在2009年首次发现了这些植物的根，并一直在对现场的所有化石进行分析。有些树根直径近6英寸(15厘米)，呈网状分布，宽36英尺(11米)。

Overview of a well-preserved Archaeopteris root system (left) and a possible Stigmarian Isoetalean lycopsid. (Photo: William Stein and Christopher Berry)

Many of the roots belong to Archaeopteris, a tree with large roots and woody branches that's an ancestor of today's modern trees, the researchers report in Current Biology. (You can see the roots of Archaeopteris in the photo directly above and more clearly in the photo at the top of this file.)

研究人员在《当代生物学》杂志上发表报告称，许多根属于古都蕨属，是一种具有根和木本植物的树，它是当今现代树木的祖先。(你可以在正上方的照片中看到始祖鸟的根，在这个文件顶部的照片中可以看得更清楚。)

The trees were one of the earliest to take carbon dioxide from the air and store it. Their deep roots would break up the soil, triggering chemical reactions that would pull CO2 from the atmosphere.

这些树是最早从空气中吸收并储存二氧化碳的树木之一。它们的深根会破坏土壤，引发化学反应，从大气中吸收二氧化碳。

"All these trees appearing was having an effect of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere," Berry told New Scientist. "By the end of the Devonian period [360 million years ago], the amount of carbon dioxide was coming down to what we know it is today."

贝瑞告诉《新科学家》杂志:“所有这些树木的出现都起到了清除大气中二氧化碳的作用。”“到泥盆纪末期(距今3.6亿年前)，二氧化碳的含量已经下降到今天的水平。”

So far, researchers have mapped more than 32,000 square feet (3,000 square meters) of the forest. They say they hope to compare their findings to other forests around the world.

到目前为止，研究人员已经测绘了超过32000平方英尺(3000平方米)的森林。他们说，他们希望将他们的发现与世界上其他森林相比较。

"It seems to me, worldwide, many of these kinds of environments are preserved in fossil soils. And I'd like to know what happened historically, not just in the Catskills, but everywhere," lead author William Stein, an emeritus professor of biological science at Binghamton University, New York, said in a release. "Understanding evolutionary and ecological history — that's what I find most satisfying."

“在我看来，在世界范围内，许多这样的环境都保存在化石土壤中。我想知道历史上发生了什么，不仅仅是在卡茨基尔，而是在世界各地。”来自纽约的宾格顿大学生物科学荣誉教授威廉斯坦在发布会上表示。“了解进化和生态历史——这是我最满意的事情。”