Silicified Wood Points to Tropical Past of Central China

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, November 18, 2002

Silicified Wood Points to Tropical Past of Central China

Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province, was once a lush tropical forest, according to Chinese geologists who have discovered large amounts of silicified wood in areas around the city.

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Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province, was once a lush tropical forest, according to Chinese geologists who have discovered large amounts of silicified wood in areas around the city.

They say that the discovery of so many pieces of silicified wood, most of which derived from ancient tropical species, proved that Wuhan probably was a land of tropical rain forest 2.5 million years ago.

Geologists from Hubei University have discovered five sections of silicified wood in Xinzhou District of Wuhan. The largest is 3.3 meters long, with a diameter of 1.3 meters. The smallest has a diameter of 0.9 meters and a bole length of over three meters.

Associate professor with the Geology Department of Hubei University Qi Guofan said he and his colleagues came across a 2.1-meter-long piece of silicified wood, with a diameter of 0.5 meters,by the roadside near Xinzhou in 1984, the first such specimen found in Wuhan.

Qi said that experts from the Chinese Academy of Forestry Sciences confirmed that the wood evolved from ancient camphor-wood, the first example of silicified camphor-wood discovered in the world.

Qi has collected more than 300 pieces of silicified wood over the past 20 years. He said his discoveries were divided into more than 20 categories, belonging to 13 ancient plant species.

He concluded that Wuhan and the areas along the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the longest river in China, enjoyed higher temperatures 2.5 million years ago and were much more moist than at present, citing the fact that all the silicified woods belonged to tropical and sub-tropical species.

He said the discovery of fossils of angiosperm, in particular, was of significant importance in the study of ancient plants.

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