20230404-Falconer Lecture: Two of Earth's Earliest Fossil Forests, Catskill Mountains

Charles Ver Straeten, Ph.D., Devonian/Sedimentary Geologist,
New York State Museum -
Around 385 million years ago, Earth’s first known forests were
scattered across the lowlands of ancient eastern New York. At
that time, the lands of New York were positioned slightly north
of 30-degrees south of the equator. In 2009, the world’s oldest
known fossilized forest was discovered by the author in Cairo,
New York. It predates the prior oldest known fossilized forest in
Gilboa, New York by nearly two million years. In this talk, the
story of this exciting geologic discovery will be accompanied by
discussions of the setting of these forests, and of forest life in the
Devonian Period according to clues gleaned from the New York
fossil record.

[@windwhipped5]

34:00 u find a lot of plant compression fossils to the East in the Rhinestreet shale in Livingston County.. I have some good ones..