Forests of giant, scaly-stemmed club mosses rose from ancient swamps in Atlantic Canada 350 million years ago.
But below the canopy sprouted even stranger trees, whose fossils were recently discovered in a quarry in Norton, N.B.
“What it really does look like is one of those truffula trees from The Lorax,” said Olivia King, one of the researchers that discovered the fossil. She referred to a famous children’s picture book by Dr. Seuss that features fantastic, colourful trees decimated to produce clothing called “thneeds.”
WATCH | You can compare the truffula trees in this review of The Lorax movie:
The Lorax and Undefeated
12 years ago
Duration 4:07
CBC’s Eli Glasner talks about two movies hitting theatres: the animated Dr. Seuss film The Lorax (and its controversial tie-ins) and the Oscar-winning football documentary Undefeated.
Like the truffula, the new fossil species, Sanfordiacaulis densifolia, was a little taller than a human, but not extremely tall (about three metres), and had a spindly stem poking into a dense mop of long leaves. That mop was more extreme than the truffula’s in size — over five metres, or about the diameter of an above-ground pool.
“It’s different than anything we see today,” said Matthew Stimson, who co-discovered the fossil, which is described in a new study published in Current Biology on Friday.
How it was found in a New Brunswick quarry
Sanfordiacaulis lived at a time called the Mississippian, an early part of the Carboniferous period. It was before dinosaurs or even reptiles had evolved, and insects and salamander-like amphibians were just starting to colonize the land. At the time, New Brunswick had a subtropical to tropical climate, and its lakes were surrounded by swampy forests.
Olivia King, a researcher at St. Mary’s University and the New Brunswick Museum, discovered the fossil with her colleague Matt Stimson at Sanford Quarry in Norton, N.B. (Matt Stimson)
King and Stimson are both graduate students at St. Mary’s University in Halifax who also work for the New Brunswick Museum. They were searching for the tracks of those early animals, often in quarries that allowed them to, because those are places where fresh rock is constantly being exposed by digging.
At Sandford quarry, the sandstone comes from the bottom of a very long, ancient lake that’s so deep that near its bottom, there was no oxygen to promote decay. It preserved not just fish, but sections of the surrounding forest plunged into its depths by earthquake-triggered landslides.
While searching there in 2017, King and Stimson spotted a tree trunk embedded in a boulder. As they dug it out to expose more, they realized that the trunk was attached to branches and leaves that didn’t belong to anything they recognized.
“This was something new, something unique,” Stimson said.
Prof. James Basinger, a paleobotanist at the University of Saskatchewan, who is not a co-author of the study, stands next to a part of the fossil. The tree trunk and attached leaves are exposed. The fossil leaves extend beyond the edges of the block, which was removed and trimmed before transport to the New Brunswick Museum. (Patrica G. Gensel)
They began sending photos to experts in fossil plants to help them identify it.
They also contacted the quarry owner, Laurie Sanford, who offered his staff and machinery to dig the boulder out and transport it to the New Brunswick Museum. The fossil is named after him for his contributions.
What it tells us about the history of trees
Robert Gastaldo, an emeritus professor at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, was among the paleobotanists called in to help identify and study the unusual plant. He recalls walking into the room where the huge block was stored, with the tree embedded in it. “And [I] went, ‘Oh wow.'”
Not only was it large, but it’s very unusual to find the crown of a tree preserved with a trunk, he said. It’s also unusual for them to be preserved in three dimensions, instead of flattened during the fossilization process.
Study co-author Adrian Park, a geologist with the New Brunswick Department of Natural Resources and Energy Development, found evidence of earthquake-triggered landslides at the fossil site. The researchers believe the sediment that encased the tree during an ancient landslide protected it from getting crushed by additional sediment piling overtop in the hundreds of millions of years that followed.
An image from the study shows the tree heights of different fossil plants found before, during and after Sandfordiacaulis. For some, only the trunks have been found. (Gastaldo et al./Current Biology)
Gastaldo said very tall club moss trees and low undergrowth plants had previously been found in forests from the Mississippian, but researchers had not yet found evidence of a middle layer of intermediate-sized trees, like those in the “subcanopy” of modern tropical forests — until this one.
Its huge mop of dense foliage likely aimed to capture as much light as possible between the canopy and the undergrowth.
Gastaldo said the existence of such a strange tree suggests this was a time when plants, which had only recently colonized the land, were experimenting with many different forms and strategies.
King noted that in the case of the form taken by Sanfordiacaulis, “we don’t see it before this time and we don’t see it after. So it’s a bit of a failed experiment.”
That said, Sandfordiacaulis did have fleeting success — more digging led the researchers to find another four specimens, and it turned out that many of its leaves and branches had previously been collected, though not identified, suggesting it was quite a common plant in its forest.
The most similar modern plants, tree ferns and palms have far fewer leaves and didn’t evolve until later.
What it tells us about ancient forests
Plant fossil researchers who weren’t involved in the study were excited by the implications for what forests were like 350 million years ago.
Cindy Looy is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who teaches a course in paleobotany and who studies how ancient plants responded to major environmental changes, such as mass extinctions and deglaciations. She said she was struck by the image of what the tree would have looked like.
“That plant must have looked like almost a gigantic umbrella if you would have been standing under it. Hardly any light would escape that plant,” she said. “It’s an unusual one and pretty cool one.”
Will Matthaeus is a postdoctoral researcher at Trinity College Dublin who measures and incorporates fossil plants into simulations of ancient ecosystems.
He said that while plants this ancient are generally strange-looking, “this is the top of the heap in terms of an unfamiliar-looking tree.”
Both Looy and Matthaeus said finding an entire tree with trunk, branches and leaves was very rare. But they were most excited that this tree provides the first evidence that forests were complex enough to have a middle layer of plants, even 350 million years ago, between the canopy and the undergrowth.
“They’re looking back to a time when we don’t really know what the forest ecosystem looked like,” Matthaeus said. “Discoveries like this are groundbreaking in that sense.”
The new study was supported by science and research funding from the Canadian, U.S. and U.K. governments and the New Brunswick Department of Natural Resources and Energy Development.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
The European Space Agency is fast-tracking a new mission called Ramses, which will fly to near-Earth asteroid 99942 Apophis and join the space rock in 2029 when it comes very close to our planet — closer even than the region where geosynchronous satellites sit.
Ramses is short for Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety and, as its name suggests, is the next phase in humanity’s efforts to learn more about near-Earth asteroids (NEOs) and how we might deflect them should one ever be discovered on a collision course with planet Earth.
In order to launch in time to rendezvous with Apophis in February 2029, scientists at the European Space Agency have been given permission to start planning Ramses even before the multinational space agency officially adopts the mission. The sanctioning and appropriation of funding for the Ramses mission will hopefully take place at ESA’s Ministerial Council meeting (involving representatives from each of ESA’s member states) in November of 2025. To arrive at Apophis in February 2029, launch would have to take place in April 2028, the agency says.
This is a big deal because large asteroids don’t come this close to Earth very often. It is thus scientifically precious that, on April 13, 2029, Apophis will pass within 19,794 miles (31,860 kilometers) of Earth. For comparison, geosynchronous orbit is 22,236 miles (35,786 km) above Earth’s surface. Such close fly-bys by asteroids hundreds of meters across (Apophis is about 1,230 feet, or 375 meters, across) only occur on average once every 5,000 to 10,000 years. Miss this one, and we’ve got a long time to wait for the next.
When Apophis was discovered in 2004, it was for a short time the most dangerous asteroid known, being classified as having the potential to impact with Earth possibly in 2029, 2036, or 2068. Should an asteroid of its size strike Earth, it could gouge out a crater several kilometers across and devastate a country with shock waves, flash heating and earth tremors. If it crashed down in the ocean, it could send a towering tsunami to devastate coastlines in multiple countries.
Over time, as our knowledge of Apophis’ orbit became more refined, however, the risk of impact greatly went down. Radar observations of the asteroid in March of 2021 reduced the uncertainty in Apophis’ orbit from hundreds of kilometers to just a few kilometers, finally removing any lingering worries about an impact — at least for the next 100 years. (Beyond 100 years, asteroid orbits can become too unpredictable to plot with any accuracy, but there’s currently no suggestion that an impact will occur after 100 years.) So, Earth is expected to be perfectly safe in 2029 when Apophis comes through. Still, scientists want to see how Apophis responds by coming so close to Earth and entering our planet’s gravitational field.
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“There is still so much we have yet to learn about asteroids but, until now, we have had to travel deep into the solar system to study them and perform experiments ourselves to interact with their surface,” said Patrick Michel, who is the Director of Research at CNRS at Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur in Nice, France, in a statement. “Nature is bringing one to us and conducting the experiment itself. All we need to do is watch as Apophis is stretched and squeezed by strong tidal forces that may trigger landslides and other disturbances and reveal new material from beneath the surface.”
The Goldstone radar’s imagery of asteroid 99942 Apophis as it made its closest approach to Earth, in March 2021. (Image credit: NASA/JPL–Caltech/NSF/AUI/GBO)
By arriving at Apophis before the asteroid’s close encounter with Earth, and sticking with it throughout the flyby and beyond, Ramses will be in prime position to conduct before-and-after surveys to see how Apophis reacts to Earth. By looking for disturbances Earth’s gravitational tidal forces trigger on the asteroid’s surface, Ramses will be able to learn about Apophis’ internal structure, density, porosity and composition, all of which are characteristics that we would need to first understand before considering how best to deflect a similar asteroid were one ever found to be on a collision course with our world.
Besides assisting in protecting Earth, learning about Apophis will give scientists further insights into how similar asteroids formed in the early solar system, and, in the process, how planets (including Earth) formed out of the same material.
One way we already know Earth will affect Apophis is by changing its orbit. Currently, Apophis is categorized as an Aten-type asteroid, which is what we call the class of near-Earth objects that have a shorter orbit around the sun than Earth does. Apophis currently gets as far as 0.92 astronomical units (137.6 million km, or 85.5 million miles) from the sun. However, our planet will give Apophis a gravitational nudge that will enlarge its orbit to 1.1 astronomical units (164.6 million km, or 102 million miles), such that its orbital period becomes longer than Earth’s.
It will then be classed as an Apollo-type asteroid.
Ramses won’t be alone in tracking Apophis. NASA has repurposed their OSIRIS-REx mission, which returned a sample from another near-Earth asteroid, 101955 Bennu, in 2023. However, the spacecraft, renamed OSIRIS-APEX (Apophis Explorer), won’t arrive at the asteroid until April 23, 2029, ten days after the close encounter with Earth. OSIRIS-APEX will initially perform a flyby of Apophis at a distance of about 2,500 miles (4,000 km) from the object, then return in June that year to settle into orbit around Apophis for an 18-month mission.
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Furthermore, the European Space Agency still plans on launching its Hera spacecraft in October 2024 to follow-up on the DART mission to the double asteroid Didymos and Dimorphos. DART impacted the latter in a test of kinetic impactor capabilities for potentially changing a hazardous asteroid’s orbit around our planet. Hera will survey the binary asteroid system and observe the crater made by DART’s sacrifice to gain a better understanding of Dimorphos’ structure and composition post-impact, so that we can place the results in context.
The more near-Earth asteroids like Dimorphos and Apophis that we study, the greater that context becomes. Perhaps, one day, the understanding that we have gained from these missions will indeed save our planet.
