A fossil tree in Peru sheds light on the Andes landscape from 10 million years ago

Handout photos made available by the Smithsonian Institution that show researchers posing next to the ‘rumiyasqa mallki’, a 10-million-year-old fossil tree, in San Miguel, Peru.

 Residents of the remote town of San Miguel guided the Smithsonian team of researchers to the site of the 10-million-year-old fossil tree that has opened an unexpected window into the past of the Peruvian Altiplano, evidencing the drastic changes environmental conditions that the central Andes suffered throughout that period.

The plant-fossil record from this high-altitude site in southern Peru contains dramatic reminders that the environment in the Andes mountains changed drastically during the past 10 million years, but not in the ways that climate models of the past suggest. Findings from the expedition are presented in the journal Science Advances.

Via EPA-EFE/Smithsonian Institution HANDOUT

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