The oldest forest in the world.

“Van Straeten is a paleobotanist at the New York State Museum, and in 2018, he and his team made a remarkable discovery right here in our region: a 385-million-year-old forest, the oldest in the world. Fossils of the forest’s root system were uncovered at the bottom of a disused quarry in Cairo, NY, and predated the previously oldest known tree fossils, found in Gilboa, NY, by about five million years.” ~ learn more