The world's oldest fossil forest, dating back 385 million years, has been found in New York, new research suggests.

At a fossil site in Cairo, New York, researchers found the extensive root system that shows evidence of leaves and wood during the Devonian Period, which occurred from about 416 to 359 million years ago, according to National Geographic.

The site is just 2 to 3 million years older than what was previously believed to be the world's oldest forest, in Gilboa, New York, less than 30 miles away.

The research team, which published their findings Thursday in the peer-reviewed journal Current Biology, shows a transition to forests as we know them today earlier than previously thought.

Study author William Stein, emeritus professor of biological sciences at Binghamton University, said the world's first forest appeared during the Devonian Period.

"The effects were of first order magnitude in terms of changes in ecosystems, what happens on the Earth’s surface and oceans, CO2 concentration in the atmosphere and global climate," he said in a statement. "So many dramatic changes occurred at that time as a result of those original forests that, basically, the world has never been the same since."

Three types trees were identified in the soil, the paper says. The first, of the Eospermatopteris genus, was a short-lived, weedlike plant also found at the site in Gilboa. A second, of the Archaeopteris genus, was a precursor to modern seed plants. The third, possibly of the Lycopsida class, may be a type of tree that lived in coal swamps that had not been previously identified as early as the Devonian Period.

"This pushes … (the origins) of this kind of root system back in time," University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill paleobotanist Patricia Gensel, who was not involved in the study, told Smithsonian magazine. "By the mid-Devonian, we have pretty sophisticated trees. Before this, we never would've been able to say that."

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Stein, who along with his team uncovered the first site in Gilboa, said more research was needed to study fossilized forests around the world, not just in New York.

"It seems to me, worldwide, many of these kinds of environments are preserved in fossil soils,"  Stein in a statement.  "And I'd like to know what happened historically, not just in the Catskills, but everywhere."

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