image: This is a late Devonian Xinicaulis tree trunk fossil from northwest China. view more
Credit: PNAS
Researchers report remarkably well-preserved fossil tree trunks from Xinjiang, northwest China, approximately 374 million years old, suggesting that Earth's earliest forest trees were able to achieve great size by a unique strategy that involved building a hollow cylindrical skeleton of interconnected, growing, woody strands that tore itself apart and collapsed under its own weight in a controlled manner as the tree's diameter expanded.
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Article #17-08241: "Unique growth strategy in the Earth's first trees revealed in silicified fossil trunks from China," by Hong-He Xu et al.
MEDIA CONTACT: Christopher Berry, Cardiff University, UNITED KINGDOM; tel: +44-29-20876971, +44-789-689-6094; e-mail: berrycm@cardiff.ac.uk; Hong-He Xu, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology, Chinese Academy Of Sciences, CHINA; tel: +86-25-8328-2230, +86-173-6189-3982; e-mail: hhxu@nigpas.ac.cn
Journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences