Ancient ecosystem uncovered upstate

ALBANY -- Fossil hunters investigating the floor of a 385-million-year-old forest in an excavated upstate New York quarry found evidence of a complex ecosystem teeming with plant life.

The journal Nature reported yesterday that excavation of the quarry in 2010 allowed researchers to study an intact portion of the forest floor complete with root systems.

William Stein, associate professor of biology at Binghamton University and an author of the article, called the discovery "the botanical equivalent of dinosaur footprints."

"The newly uncovered area was preserved in such a way that we were literally able to walk among the trees, noting what kind they were, where they had stood and how big they had grown," he said.

Researchers found evidence of three different kinds of trees growing near each other. One large plant may have scrambled into the forest canopy like tropical vines. They believe the site, now about 125 miles inland, was then a tropical swamp near a shoreline.

The area southwest of Albany has been on the paleontological map since the 19th century, when workers found a group of fossilized stumps cited as evidence of the world's oldest forest. The finds were dubbed the "Gilboa stumps" after the rural Schoharie County town nearby.

The excavated site gives new insights into the mid-Devonian era, when the emergence of trees signaled major changes around the globe including a drop in carbon dioxide levels and an associated cooling off.

Researchers from the New York State Museum and Cardiff University in Wales were also involved in the research.