When scientists Neil Davies and Will McMahon stopped for lunch under the cliffs of west Somerset, they found something very unexpected. Their discovery supports a new paradigm about the world's oldest engineers, and may even change your mind about deep time.

In this episode of On the Ground, host Laura Cole travels to the rugged coastline of South West England to walk the site of a groundbreaking geological revelation: the world’s oldest fossilised forest. She's joined by Neil Davies and Will McMahon, the researchers who quite literally stumbled upon history while sitting down for a sandwich.

Dating back an incredible 390 million years to the Devonian Period, this ancient ecosystem is four million years older than the previous record-holder in New York State. But this isn't just a story about old rocks. These strange fossils, known as Calamophyton, were Earth’s very first environmental engineers. Neil and Will explain how these primitive trees permanently altered how water and land interact, shaping the world's river systems and accelerating the expansion of life on land.

Read the research: Earth’s earliest forest: fossilized trees and vegetation-induced sedimentary structures, co-authored by Neil Davies, Will McMahon, and Christopher Berry.

See what ancient Calamophyton looked like.

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When Stephen Clarke, a prominent local councillor and leading climate activist in Bristol, called the expansion of Bristol Airport the biggest carbon decision for a generation, he knew the environmental stakes were high. Then he found out who actually owned it.

In this episode of On the Ground, host Laura Cole reveals a story of a massive national oversight. It’s the story of a local planning battle over an airport that escalated into a national problem we are still struggling to resolve – who is counting aviation emissions? And who is watching a wave of airport expansion across the country?

She's joined by Clarke and members of the Bristol Airport Action Network (BAAN).

Read more about the UK's push for airport expansion and

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