While the Wuda in Inner Mongolia is no longer a lush tropical area, coal mining in the region helped researchers find this peat forest which was buried and preserved in ash from a nearby volcanic eruption before dinosaurs roamed the planet.
According to The Australian, the forest was swampy with a lower canopy of tree ferns beneath now-extinct trees which towered at 24m above the ground – roughly the height of an eight-storey building.
The forest reportedly held a little-known group of spore-bearing trees which might be related to ferns.
The three study sites cover more than 1000 square metres, according to research published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
