Dead Sea fossils hint at earlier start for some ancient plants

Surprising finds unearthed in Jordan suggest that fern and conifer species survived the 'Great Dying' 250 million years ago.

Found near the Dead Sea, this fossil of a conifer that lived more than 252 million years ago belongs to a family of plants that’s still around today.
Found near the Dead Sea, this fossil of a conifer that lived more than 252 million years ago belongs to a family of plants that’s still around today.
Palaeobotany Research Group Münster
Some ancient plants were survivors.
 

A collection of roughly 255-million-year-old fossils suggests that three major plant groups existed earlier than previously thought, and made it through a mass extinction that wiped out more than 90 percent of Earth’s marine species and roughly 70 percent of land vertebrates.

Click here to read more from Science News.

 


 

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