Fossil Fires - FOS 128

FOS 128
Charcoal Trace Fossil
Location: Hyner, PA
Catskill Formation

As I tackle the steep red sides of a crumbling roadcut in the far backwoods of Pennsylvania, my geological hammer pries out mounds of fossilized plant material. These remains of some of the earliest pre-forests scatter the ground, having never seen the sun since they were buried some 360 million years ago in the late Devonian. This was a time marked when vertebrates were just emerging onto dry land, when forests began to take root, and when large predatory fish ruled the seas. Despite the temporal distance, there is much we can learn from this preserved foliage. 

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