Geochemical Evidence of First Forestation in the Southernmost Euramerica from Upper Devonian (Famennian) Black Shales.

The global dispersal of forests and soils has been proposed as a cause for the Late Devonian mass extinctions of marine organisms, but detailed spatiotemporal records of forests and soils at that time remain lacking. We present data from microscopic and geochemical analyses of the Upper Devonian Chattanooga Shale (Famennian Stage). Plant residues (microfossils, vitrinite and inertinite) and biomarkers derived from terrestrial plants and wildfire occur throughout the stratigraphic section, suggesting widespread forest in the southern Appalachian Basin, a region with no macro plant fossil record during the Famennian.