A newly discovered cave in Illinois contains some fascinating relics of the ancient past including the remains of the oldest conifer tree ever discovered. Professor Roy Plotnick of the University of Illinois at Chicago and a group of his students discovered the cave while on a field trip. The cave is only about two hours away from Chicago and is very, very large. It will take years to explore the entire cave system.
North America's oldest conifer tree and some ancient scorpion parts are among the fossil treasures found in a newly discovered cave in Illinois.
The new discovery also unearthed fossils of plants that may be new to science and revealed evidence of prehistoric forest fires.
Scientists date the specimens to nearly 315 million years ago, according to initial findings presented last month at the regional meeting of the Geological Society of America in Lawrence, Kan.
"I've never seen anything like this before," said Roy Plotnick, a paleontologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago who discovered the cave with students on a field trip to a site two hours outside of Chicago. "The limestone that forms the cave is 450 million years old, but that's not the interesting part of the cave. The preservation inside the cave is what's fascinating."
What is of interest to Plotnick and his colleagues are the well-preserved bits of plants and insects that have been cushioned in the cave and protected from the elements.
Illinois is suddenly turning into a regular hotbed of geological discoveries. This announcement follows right on the heels of the news of an entire fossilized rainforest in a coal mine in that state.
I wonder why they weren’t more specific about the location of the cave. Secrets? I read your previous post about the coal mine with interest. Don’t recall any reference to the Danvile area. I’ve lived in downstate Illinois all my life and never associated Danville with coal mines. But I guess coal’s everywhere in Illinoois. Interesting.
Oddly enough, Illinois was actually a really major coal producer until the sulfur rules kicked in – Illinois coal tends to be very high in that element, so a lot of the old mines closed down. (Too expensive to retrofit the power plants with scrubbers.) There were once a lot of coal mines in Illinois. Lead mines, too. Galena was the source for most of the entire world’s lead for a long time.
“Fossilized rainforest” means that it was there, and then died. OH NOES!!!1!! Save the rainforests from eeevil humanity!
It’d be fun to laugh at enviroweenies if their policy suggestions weren’t so dangerous.
Maybe they’ll find Jimmy Hoffa.