Sigillaria

Trees may sometimes behave in strange ways, and help us understand our past: during the middle years of the nineteenth century, a certain number of tree stumps were found in Nova Scotia. These were in a fossil state and dated as belonging to the middle of the Carboniferous period.

The Carboniferous period went on from 360 million years to 286; the stumps were dated later as have originated in living 'Sigillaria' trees around 310 million years ago. The Carboniferous predates dinosaurs, but it was a period of history when almost all landmasses were covered with dense vegetation which, over time became fossilised or carbonised; or deposits of combustible coal come, to a great extent, from this vegetation and period. Some of the families of animal and vegetal species that we know today began then, like conifers.

Soon it was noticed that the stumps found had holes in the middle, like what happens in the case of the trunks of many living trees, and became apparent that these stumps were left after the each tree died and fell apart, leaving the section attached to the ground only. This led to further investigation, and during the cleansing process don in labs, it was also found that the stumps' holes were filled in many cases with the fossilised remains of small animals.

These were generally fragile fossils that would otherwise not reached our days. The Sigillaria trees covered the region of Nova Scotia forming dense and vast forests which were ripe with life. Apparently, these suffered periodic floods and over time lime deposited inside the stumps up to the brim, covering everything that was inside them with a compact mass of sediments and helping preserve those contents.

But in the meantime, these hollow stumps worked as natural traps where a lot of small animals fell; unable to get out, they died inside. It is also possible that some of those animals used the stumps as traps for hunting their food too.

Although it was not the Sigillaria trees that captured their nourishment like some modern carnivorous plants, the thin is that their remains ended working like that. Thanks to these traps, now we are able to gain knowledge about some species that otherwise would have been impossible, because of the remarkable preservation of those remains as well as for the fact that small animals hardly are found with their skeletons fairly intact, since those bones are small and the natural processes that take place over so many million years grind, erode and break them like any small rock.

Among the species found there are two which are very important: 'Paleothyris' and 'Hylonimus' are the oldest reptiles identified so far and thus, these small lizards are, in fact, our very distant ancestors.

Article Source: http://www.articlegush.com

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