N.B. Fossil Is World's Second Oldest Sample of Wood

Of course, France had to go and beat it by a good 10 million years, but still! Who knew old wood would be so interesting?

A fossilized plant found in New Brunswick has been found to be the second-oldest piece of wood on the planet, at some 397 million years old. A University of North Carolina professor found the fossil some years ago in the wilds of New Brunswick, but only just recently tested its age. The plant was determined to have been one of the earliest pieces of wood on Earth, although another piece found in France ended up being 10 million years older. The two fossils were both from small herbs that stood not even a foot tall. The researchers believe that the tiny plants developed wood as an evolutionary measure to protect themselves from declining levels of oxygen in the Devonian era, leading the team to conclude that these are the earliest ancestors of our modern-day trees.