Thanks to this find near the town of Selb (Wunsiedel district), the forest of that time could be reconstructed, the Bavarian State Office for the Environment (LfU) announced on Monday. At that time there was no spruce forest in the mountains in eastern Upper Franconia.
Natural disaster as a stroke of luck for researchers
Millions of years ago, a volcanic eruption blew a 70 meter deep crater into the subsoil of the Fichtelgebirge, 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.” The pollen was preserved in the hole 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.
How the forest developed
According to the investigations, after the volcanic explosion, ferns first grew on the slopes of the crater, then 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.
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Source: Nachrichten
