Researchers Examine Fossils With Algae

Researchers in France and China have identified some enigmatic fossils from the Devonian period, about 400 million years ago, as charophyte algae.

Charophytes are land plants living in fresh water that still exist today. This breakthrough allows researchers to better understand the evolution of these very old plants of the Paleozoic era and to have an improved overview of the climate at this period.

The use of powerful X-rays beams to perform high resolution microtomography at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, France, was one of the major keys in helping to understand the internal structure of these fossils.

The findings, published in the American Journal of Botany, investigated the three-dimensional structure of the fossils.