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According to one study, ancient forest fires played a crucial role in the formation and extension of grbadlands covering vast areas of the Earth.
The study revealed that frequent and seasonal fires nearly 10 million years ago. The Miocene – geological period – helped to transform forest areas into open landscapes and to develop grbadlands.
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States have developed an innovative approach to test the role of fire in the emergence of ancient grbadlands. They badyzed tracers of old leaves and burnt organic material left in paleosols (stratified or terrestrial horizons) or fossil soils in northern Pakistan.
"The tools we use are molecules and biomarkers produced by Earth-history organisms and preserved in rocks," said Allison Karp, a graduate student of the university. .
"We can use it as clues to understand what was happening in the past with climate and ecology," Karp added.
This new technique seeks to answer questions about vegetation and climate change in the past and shows that the tool can, according to the researchers, locate a fire where it occurred.
"This is one of the greatest ecological changes of the last 66 million years," said Karp in an article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
About 10 million years ago, forests were replaced by forests or grbadlands open and more exposed to fire, and six to eight million years ago, C4 grbadlands became dominant.
At the end of the Miocene, the rainy seasons caused by monsoon conditions favored the growth of plants, which in turn created more fuel for fires during hot and dry seasons in Pakistan.
Importantly, scientists have long studied the rise of C4 grbadlands – plants that have developed a new way of managing photosynthesis that allows them to thrive in dry tropical conditions and with lesser amounts of carbon dioxide.
The role played by fire in the expansion and evolution of grbadland systems in the depths is important because understanding how the system has maintained the systems of the past can help us predict what may happen to these important systems in the future if the climate continues to change, Karp noted.
– IANS
pb / rt / mag / bg
(This story was not edited by Business Standard staff and is generated automatically from a syndicated feed.)
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