As of: April 8, 2024, 5:51 p.m
By: Katarina Amtmann
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The State Office for the Environment is conducting a borehole to investigate previous volcanic activity in the region. The area was still volcanically active until the Stone Age. © Daniel Löb/dpa +++ dpa-Bildfunk +++
Researchers have discovered tree pollen in Bavaria that is 20 million years old. A catastrophe back then is a stroke of luck for research today.
Selb - There has been an impressive discovery in Upper Franconia: researchers have discovered 20 million year old tree pollen in a volcanic crater in the Fichtelgebirge. Thanks to the discovery near Selb (Wunsiedel district), the forest of that time could be reconstructed, as the Bavarian State Office for the Environment (LfU) announced on Monday, April 8th. At that time there was no spruce forest in the mountains in eastern Upper Franconia.
Volcanic eruption millions of years ago: “Disaster as a stroke of luck for today’s research”
Millions of years ago, a volcanic eruption blasted a 70-meter-deep crater into the subsoil of the Fichtel Mountains, said Roland Eichhorn, head of the geological service at the LfU: “The natural disaster back then turns out to be a stroke of luck for today’s research.” Because in the hole the pollen has been preserved for millions of years.
The LfU commissioned geoscientists from the Technical University of Darmstadt to extract fossil pollen from samples from the volcanic craters. This is how the researchers tracked down the primeval forest of the Fichtelgebirge, according to the state office.
The geologists Ernst Kroemer (l) and Johann Rohrmüller (r) show a soil sample that comes from a depth of between 15 and 16 meters. The State Office for the Environment is using the drilling to research previous volcanic activity in the region. The area was still volcanically active until the Stone Age. © Daniel Löb/dpa +++ dpa-Bildfunk +++
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Researchers find 20 million year old tree pollen in the Fichtelgebirge
According to the investigations, after the volcanic explosion, ferns first grew on the slopes of the crater, then finally elms and hickory, a genus of trees from the walnut family that now grows mainly in North America and East Asia. Only gradually did the original mixed forest of pine, spruce, beech, chestnut and walnut trees return.
(came/dpa)
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