FOSSIL TROPICAL PLANTS - 300 million years old - Radstock, Somerset
« backFOSSIL TROPICAL PLANTS
300 million years old
Radstock, Somerset
Fossilised leaves of tropical plants from the coal mines of Radstock in Somerset, part of the Somerset Coalfield. It was collected in the 1980s from the tips of Writhlington Colliery.
Radstock is a classic area for studying the plants that were living in Britain at this time. A diverse range of fossils were found on the coal tips up until closure of the last colliery in the 1970s, although further fossils did turn up when the tips were reworked for coal in the 1980s.
| THE COAL MEASURES FORESTS In the Carboniferous period Britain was situated near the equator and covered by dense tropical rain forest with giant trees and strange fern-like plants. Much of this vegetation became layers of coal, but some plants left impressions in mud which hardened into stone. Flowering plants had not yet evolved and the dominant vegetation was giant clubmosses, horsetails and seed ferns growing on the banks of the coal-forming swamps. Animal life at the time was dominated by insects which included dragonflies with a two-metre wingspan. |
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Size: 17 x 11 x 3 centimetres
Weight: 893 grams
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