At https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/plants/cairo-fossil-forest-the-oldest-forest-in-north-america-with-385-million-year-old-trees … we have the Cairo Forest – nuit nowhere near Egypt. It is located in Upper New York State. It is also estimated to be 385 million years of age, dating back to the end of the Devonian period. Or thereabouts. It is actually situated on a quarry floor and its existence may have brought the quarrying to a halt while it was being investigated. So, fairly deep in the geochronological record. Some of the fossilised roots are 6 inches thich and stretch as far as 36 feet. They are thought to belong to Archaeopteris, an extinct species with fern like leaves. They are, however, related to modern trees. We are told the forest complements the discovery of a similar aged fossil forest in SW England. There, the trees, also extinct, look like palm trees – and were related to ferns and horsetails. Similar plants have also been found just 25 miles away from the Cairo Fossil Forest. Bear in mind, this was when North America was joined to Euroasia as part of Pangaea. The Atlantic did not exist.
At https://dailygalaxy.com/2025/09/scientists-confirmed-mammoths-shouldnt-existed/ …. new fossil evidence seems to show woolly mammoths and Columbian mammoths were not simply distanct cousins established in different parts of North America during the Ice Age, but they were interbreeding with each other. Hybrid mammoths are able to adapt to shifting climate regimes we are told. However, more likely that mammoths were subject to changes in the Earth’s system and their former ranges. Climate regimes brought them together. The link makes much of the idea that evolutionary theory is that elephant species change along a neat branching family line. Sounds like the author has visited the Natural History Museum once too often. We know that polar bears are basically brown bears that have developed their white fur as camouflage in the Arctic. Woolly mammoths can easily be seen as mammoths that have grown shaggy hair for the same reason – and possibly altered their size in order to cope with a less sub tropical diet. Why each species has to be hung on a line of descent is a bit of a mystery. The link says that hybridisation can also drive evolutionary innovation – rather than disrupt it. The hybrids, in this instance, thrived. Evolution may be more about adaptation to new environments such as would occur in a post catastrophe world and may have nothing to do with trees of descent based on evolving in a uniformitarian world in which nothing much happens. Just a thought. The comings and goings of the Ice Ages would therefore provide the catastrophic changes to the environment as requiired.