Charcoal in the Silurian as evidence for the earliest wildfire

Abstract

Rare basal Pridoli plant fossils, which resemble the rhyniophytoid Hollandophyton colliculum and have exceptional three-dimensional cellular anatomy, are preserved as charcoal. As such, these fossils from Ludford Lane in the Welsh Borders are evidence of the earliest recorded wildfire and are the first documented from before the Devonian. The fossils represent the charred remains of a low-growing, low-diversity, in situ rhyniophytoid or cryptospore-bearing plant vegetation charred during a low-temperature fire.