The Hudson Valley is Home to The World’s Oldest Forest

It was recently discovered that the world's oldest forest is from the Hudson Valley.

Researchers looking for fossil soils near Cairo recently found the root system of 385-million-year-old trees. Researches believe the preserved root systems prove the existence of trees with leaves and wood from the Devonian Period.

“The Devonian Period represents a time in which the first forest appeared on planet Earth,” William Stein said. “The effects were of first-order magnitude in terms of changes in ecosystems, what happens on the Earth’s surface and oceans, CO2 concentration in the atmosphere and global climate. So many dramatic changes occurred at that time as a result of those original forests that, basically, the world has never been the same since.”

In 2012, Stein, a Binghamton University professor, and his team of researchers found evidence of fossil forest in Gilboa, New York. For years, it was thought the Gilboa forest was the world's oldest, until the recent discovery in Cairo, about 40 minutes from Gilboa.

The discovery of the world's oldest forest coming from the Hudson Valley was published in the December Current Biology.

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