Devonian charcoal

Plants preserved as fossil charcoal are identified from the late Famennian of central Germany. The fossils consist of small angular fragments with a dull black lustre, brittle fracture, high quality microstructural preservation and homogenised cell walls. Tissues are derived from xylem with circular to scalariform pits and xylem combined with fibrous tissue and parenchyma. Associated macrofossils include fragmentary coalified compressions and limonitised petrifactions, and represent early seed plants, lycopsids, cladoxylaleans and putative foliage of Archaeopteris. Whereas charcoalified plant remains are common elements of floras following the Lower Carboniferous, unequivocal records of wildfire-derived charcoal from the Devonian and earlier sediments are less certain. This finding from the LN miospore zone of the late Famennian represents one of the earliest documented instances of macroscopic fire-derived fusain in the fossil record. The literature on pre-Carboniferous charcoal-like fossils is reviewed and the implications of a continuous fossil record of charcoal since at least the Upper Devonian are discussed.