Contact for the Fossil Forest
The Cairo Public Library was founded in 1963.
Fossil Forest Fun Facts
Cairo is making archeological history once again but this time it’s Cairo, New York not Cairo, Egypt.
About 385 million years ago, trees grew and fell in an ancient forest in Upstate New York. In 2009, scientists from the New York State Museum, discovered oldest Devonian fossil forest remnants in the world. This find surpasses its more well-known sister site in Gilboa, located about 26 miles west of Cairo
The Cairo site, located in an abandoned quarry, contain the remains of two types of ancient trees including Archaeopteris and the fern-like Eospermatopteris. The detection of oceanic fish fossils at the site, an unusual find for a coastal forest and indicative of cataclysmic events such as a tidal wave or a hurricane. The continuing evolution of plants, trees, and animals created an environment that supported dinosaurs and then, hundreds of millions of years later, humans.