PRE-HISTORIC TREES

Southland Times, Issue 21428, 24 June 1931, Page 8

PRE-HISTORIC TREES

FIFTY MILLION YEARS OLD. AN INTERESTING DISCOVERY. Edmonton, May 15. Wood believed by scientists to be from trees which lived between fifty and one hundred million years ago, perfectly preserved through the dim ages by a heavy coating of bitumen, has been taken from tar sand deposits at Fort McMurray, in Northern Alberta and is being studied in botanical laboratories. Experts believe further excavation in the tar sand pits may reveal bodies of the great dinosaurs similarly saved from decay for this distant generation.

It is estimated that these marvellous specimens of ancient wood drifted down to the estuary of a prehistoric river at the present site of Fort McMurray, became embedded in the sand and were covered with a bituminous coating before decay commenced. Microscopic sections show beautiful grainings and colourings, the growth rings being clearly defined. It is a hard wood of a deep reddish colour with a grain somewhat resembling bird’s eye maple and is supposed to have belonged to the family from which developed the modern conifers. Professor Francis J. Lewis, botanist of the University of Alberta, believes that so far as palaeobotany is concerned the plants and woods of the McMurray tar sands are probably the greatest source of supply in the world. Pieces of wood possibly of equal age have been discovered elsewhere, but they are in a petrified state and difficult to study. The McMurray specimens have come from a pit sixty feet square. Since there are said to be at least eighty-nine cubic miles of similar tar sands the possibilities of discoveries of tremendous importance and interest are causing a good deal of speculation.