Surprisingly complex community discovered in the mid-Devonian fossil forest at Gilboa.

The origin of trees by the mid-Devonian epoch (398-385 million years ago) signals a major change in terrestrial ecosystems with potential long-term consequences including increased weathering, drop in atmospheric CO(2), modified climate, changes in sedimentation patterns and mass extinction. However, little is known about the ecology of early forests or how changes in early terrestrial ecosystems influenced global processes. One of the most famous palaeontological records for this time is the 'oldest fossil forest' at Riverside Quarry, Gilboa, New York, USA, discovered in the 1920s.

Giant cladoxylopsid trees resolve the enigma of the Earth's earliest forest stumps at Gilboa.

The evolution of trees of modern size growing together in forests fundamentally changed terrestrial ecosystems. The oldest trees are often thought to be of latest Devonian age (about 380-360 Myr old) as indicated by the widespread occurrence of Archaeopteris (Progymnospermopsida). Late Middle Devonian fossil tree stumps, rooted and still in life position, discovered in the 1870s from Gilboa, New York, and later named Eospermatopteris, are widely cited as evidence of the Earth's 'oldest forest'.