Image: An X-ray reconstruction of a 32-million-year-old fossil kelp holdfast colored to show the base (orange), holdfast (yellow) and the bivalve shell to which it attached (blue). Credit: Dula Parkinson/Advanced Light Source, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Professor of Integrative Biology and Paleobotanist Cindy Looy recently published evidence for the greater antiquity of kelp forests, in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.The new research reveals that the Pacific Coast’s kelp forests, rich ecosystems supporting diverse marine life, originated over 32 million years ago, much earlier than previously believed. Read more in this article linked here.