WHEN YOU
LOOK
Western Bluebird
Redwood needles
Between the past, present and the future.
When you look at this redwood needle, you see a small part of the largest majestic specimen on Earth.
The ancient Sequoia
Thirty-five million years ago, in the early Oligocene Epoch and the late Eocene Epoch, the continental arrangement was like today, but the paleoclimate was different. The climate was characterized of low CO2 levels—six times lower than the current level, and the global mean temperatures were in the margin of 25°-30°C. This warm and wet climate allowed for sequoia to thrive compared to the dry and cold climate in central Colorado. It was growing in much more favorable conditions than either present day Sequoia sempervirens. As a result of 35 million years of evolution, Ancient Sequoia differs greatly from the only survivor of the Sequoia genus, Sequoia sempervirens.
Bubo Scandiacus, The Snowy Owl
Volcanic Eruption
The Florissant Valley in Colorado was characterized by a warm-temperate and dry. A forest of giant sequoia grew along the streams and lake shore of the Florissant Basin along with other ancestral species of ash, maple, elm and other deciduous trees. Over the next hundred thousand years or more, a volcanic eruption covered the Florissant Basin with volcanic debris. This debris, consisting of ash, mudflows, tuffs, and breccia, drifted over the Lake Florissant and covered the basin intermittently with layers of thin sediments. It buried the giant sequoia stumps under fine-grained shale layers, often carbonized. The fossilized redwood trio in the image to the right are remnants of an ancient buried forest resulting from a volcanic eruption.
The needles
Sequoia affinis, the leaves of Ancient Sequoia, were thinner and pressed more closely along the branch compared to the modern coast redwood, Sequoia sempervirens. Florissant Valley is characterized by preserving fossils that are so incredibly small that even the detailed features such as insects’ “hair” and veins are preserved in the leaf.
