Fossilized Arctic Forests and Climate Change 380 Million Years Ago

Summary: A study in Geology Nov. 19, 2015, links fossilized Arctic forests in Norway's Svalbard archipelago and climate change 380 million years ago.

reconstructed drawing of Svalbard fossil forest: Dr Chris Berry/Cardiff University, no usage restrictions, via EurekAlert!

Fossilized Arctic forests in the world’s most continuously inhabited, northernmost lands at the Svalbard archipelago of Norway are triggers of major climate change 380 million years ago, according to a study released Nov. 19, 2015, by the open-access journal Geology for its December 2015 edition.

Intact tree stumps bear witness to Svalbard’s equatorial location during the Devonian period 420 million to 360 million years ago, before the tectonic plate’s northward drifting around 80 degrees to the Arctic Ocean. They constitute a tropical forest dissimilar in variety but similar in height, impact and spacing to a slightly older paleo-equatorial forest located prehistorically at least 30 degrees south of the equator and presently in Gilboa, upstate New York.

The sylvan relics describe the succession of small, sparse plants by dense, tall trees. Proliferation of low-lying, wide-spaced vegetation explains greater radiation deflections, higher atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and hotter temperature ranges on Earth before trees.

Co-authors Christopher M. Berry of the Cardiff School of Earth and Ocean Sciences in Wales and John E. A. Marshall of Ocean and Earth Science at the University of Southampton’s National Oceanographic Centre in England find heavy rainfall and high temperatures growing equatorial forests.

The first big trees growing 5.91 to 7.87 inches (15 to 20 centimeters) apart and 13.12 feet (4 meters) tall in turn generate dropping temperatures, falling atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, rapid soil weathering and rising radiation absorptions.

Tall, thick growth halts global warming by photosynthetic intakes of carbon dioxide and radiation. It inspires soil formation from bark, roots and wood storing carbon dioxide and soluble minerals and roots exuding sugary wastes. The two co-authors judge as the most significant environmental consequences that “During the Devonian Period, it is widely believed that there was a huge drop in the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, from 15 times the present amount to something approaching current levels. The evolution of tree-sized vegetation is the most likely cause of this dramatic drop in carbon dioxide because the plants were absorbing carbon dioxide through photosynthesis to build their tissues, and also through the process of forming soils.”

The co-researchers know of three types of Devonian forests transitioning from non-woody to woody plants: archaeopteridaleans (leafy-branched, woody-trunked suspected relatives of living conifers), lycopsids (needle-branched, ribbon-rooted, trunk-flared club mosses) and pseudosporochnaleans (medium- or small-sized trees similar to living palms and tree ferns). Gilboa’s Riverside Quarry looks like a graveyard with palm-like Eospermatopteris and vine-like progymnosperms. The three localities from the Plantekløfta Formation in Munindalen on Spitsbergen in Svalbord mix lycopsid tree stumps with lycopsid tree megaspores from Verrucisporites submamillarius and lycopsid microspores from Cymbosporites magnificus and Tholisporites densus.

Dr. Berry notes of the dissimilarities that “It suggests that more than one tree group was forming forests and these forests were not the same everywhere on the planet.”

Fossilized arctic forests, found in Munindalen's Plantekløfta Formation, northwest of Spitsbergen's ghost town of Pyramiden in the Svalbard archipelago, attest to climate change 380 million years ago: Oona Räisänen (Mysid), CC BY SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Svalbard fossil forest: Dr Chris Berry/Cardiff University, no usage restrictions, via EurekAlert! @ http://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/103692.php

Fossilized arctic forests, found in Munindalen's Plantekløfta Formation, northwest of Spitsbergen's ghost town of Pyramiden in the Svalbard archipelago, attest to climate change 380 million years ago: Oona Räisänen (Mysid), CC BY SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Topographic_map_of_Svalbard.svg

For further information:

Berry, Christopher M., and John E.A. Marshall. December 2015. "Lycopsid Forests in the Early Late Devonian Paleoequatorial Zone of Svalbard." Geology, vol. 43, no. 12: 1043-1046. DOI: 10.1130.G37000.1
Available @ http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/43/12/1043.full.pdf+html

The Cosmos News. 21 November 2015. "Tropical forest remains in Arctic Norway?  Tree Fossils Shows." YouTube.
Available @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-STb75zE2k

geosociety @geosociety. 19 November 2015. ".@cardiffuni researchers help unearth ancient forest via @BBCNEWS." Twitter.
Available @ https://twitter.com/geosociety/status/667381974349168640

Pascual, Katrina. 20 November 2015. "Fossilized Forest Discovered In Norway Triggered Dramatic Climate Change 380 Million Years Ago." Tech Times.
Available @ http://www.techtimes.com/articles/108816/20151120/fossilized-forest-discovered-in-norway-triggered-dramatic-climate-change-380-million-years-ago.htm