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An ancient mangrove wood with trees that tower up to 130 foundation high-pitched has been come across over 20 million years after a volcanic mudflow smothered it in what is now Panama , a new survey reveals .
Researchers first find the fossils in 2018 during a geologic expedition on Barro Colorado Island ( BCI ) . The island sits in Panama ’s human - made Gatun Lake , which thousands of ships cross every year as they cruise through the Panama Canal . BCI once spring part of a hilly landscape that became partially submerged in 1913 , when engineersdammed the Chagres Riverto make the canal , and was set aside as a nature reserve in 1923 . Today , the tropic forest of BCI are some of the most intensively studied in the world .
A fossilized wood sample discovered on Barro Colorado Island in Panama.
" We never opine that dodo wood would be in BCI " reach the legion scientists who have surveyed the island over the retiring 100 — " nobody had reported them , " study co - authorCarlos Jaramillo , a geologist with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama , tell Live Science in an electronic mail . The fossils " are knockout to tell asunder from any other decaying tree in the timberland , " because they seem like waste stumps , Jaramillo enunciate .
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Despite their appearance , the mangrove fossils are actually stunningly preserved , Jaramillo said . That ’s because a volcanic bang buried the trees around 23 million years ago during the other Miocene epoch ( 23 million to 5.3 million age ago ) , slowing down putrefaction and freezing the landscape painting in time .
Researcher Karen Cárdenas sitting next to a fossil mangrove on Barro Colorado Island.
" Fossil Sir Henry Joseph Wood samples also know as petrified wood depot a great amount of information , " cogitation steer authorCamila Martínez Aguillón , a paleoecologist at EAFIT University in Colombia , told Live Science in an email . The cellular structure is mineralized over the eons and save entire , offering research worker " a uncommon and great chance to journey into the past , " Martínez Aguillón said .
The researchers examined 121 fossilize Mrs. Henry Wood samples that lay exposed in a small creek on BCI and encounter 50 of them belong to a antecedently strange species , which they namedSonneratioxylon barrocoloradoensis . The newfound fogy species resemble mangrove tree that get in Southeast Asia ; Australasia , a region that include Australia , New Zealand and some surrounding islands ; and parts of tropical Africa today , Martínez Aguillón said .
But the ancient wood stood much taller than modern mangrove , according to a study in the March 2024 take of the journalPalaeogeography , Palaeoclimatology , Palaeoecology .
The newfound fossil mangrove species grew taller than the mangroves that grow today in Southeast Asia (pictured).
Whereas the canopies of most surviving mangrove tree reach around 43 feet ( 13 meters ) high , S. barrocoloradoensisgrew to around 82 feet ( 25 m ) and could tower up to 130 foot ( 40 m ) .
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The ancient Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree likely evolved the same survival strategies mangrove use today , prefer brackish weewee to extremely saline ocean body of water , Jaramillo said . The forest fringe a narrow peninsula that connect present - day central Panama to North America before theIsthmus of Panama form , sometime between 23 million and 3 million geezerhood ago .
The mangrove fossils were all in a similar state of conservation , prompting the investigator to suppose the forest was wiped out by a undivided volcanic bam that flooded the landscape with mud .
Since the researchers first expose wood fossils on Barro Colorado Island , " multitude have been finding plenty more all over the island , " Jaramillo said .
