Tropical Forest in Arctic Norway

According to scientists, weird trees with flared trunks and curved branches made up of needle leaves used to cover the equator around 380 million years ago.  Recently, they have found these trees very, very far away from the equator.  They happened to find their ancient trees in the arctic part of Norway, named Svalbard.  From tropical environment to some of the coldest climates on Earth.  The tree were found fossilized and have been estimated to be the oldest sign of forest life known to man.  These trees existed during the Devonian period of Earth between 416 million and 358 million years ago.  They were the first big trees to ever inhabit the planet.  Since these were the the biggest plants around, they contributed to the planet’s massive decrease in carbon dioxide.  They are estimated to have reduced the planet’s carbon dioxide level ten-fold.  The special about these trees in Svalbard is that they are older than the estimated existence of these kinds of trees.  The Svalbard trees are 20 million years older than the estimated age.  This means that these trees in particular and most likely the very first spawn of trees that came into existence on Earth.  More evidence to back this up is the comparison between the Svalbard trees and the ancient tropical forest found in Gilboa, New York.  The forest found in Gilboa was leafy and shruby.  The one found is Svalbard is made up of lycopsids, which are trees that have spores and needle leaves rather than leafy trees like we know know-a-days.