Old is relative. For the youths of today, having used a VHS player probably makes you old. Others might argue that having a working understanding of what a shilling was means you’re old. Bickering aside, let us all agree on one thing: a fossilised tree which existed one hundred million years before Pangaea is really, sufficiently, very old.
The fossilised remains of 390 million year old calamophyton trees were recently discovered by archaeologists on the coasts of Devon and Somerset, near a Butlin’s camp. Those remains offer a rare glimpse into what the Earth looked like before the dinosaurs even made an entrance.
Researchers at the universities of Cambridge and Cardiff told the Guardian: ‘There wasn’t any undergrowth to speak of and grass hadn’t yet appeared, but there were lots of twigs dropped by these densely packed trees, which had a big effect on the landscape.’
The species of tree that’s been discovered no longer exists, and like most other things from the period, they wouldn’t be particularly recognisable to us if they did.
‘This was a pretty weird forest,’ explained Neil Davies, an Earth Sciences professor at Cambridge University. These trees were between two and four metres tall with hollow trunks and no leaves, so not very similar to anything we’d see in Devon today. The discoveries aren’t just pretty fossils: they tell researchers a lot about the ways in which rivers and coastlines formed at the time.
These remains have caused quite a stir in the Devonian geological arborist community. Prof Davies said that ‘people sometimes think that British rocks have been looked at enough, but this shows that revisiting them can yield important new discoveries.’
If you’re a hardcore pre-historic tree fan, you can find the full report here.
Tectonic plates have shifted. Thousands of species have come, and lived, and died. Empires have fallen, and still we have this connection to our planet from so long ago. A single string leading us all the way back to a world none of us would even recognise. It really puts it all into perspective: appreciate what you have, for you could be immortalised for hundreds of millions of years in the very fabric of the Earth, and there’s still nothing stopping you from ending up in a Butlin’s.
Love the natural world?
We can help you enjoy it right now, rather than just musing about what it was like in the palaeolithic era. We have guides to Britain’s best underrated beaches, the best UK campsites to enjoy a springtime dose of the outdoors in, our favourite wild swimming locations, and a complete roundup of the best hikes this island has to offer.
If you’re digging for more historic stuff, Time Out has bucketloads of that, too. We recently covered this vast new Roman road network being discovered in England, plus how a ‘lost’ UK rainforest is being brought back to life.
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