Fossilised wood shows piece of Europe sank 5 km and heated to 240°C

Imagine you are holding a piece of fossilized wood. It might, at first sight, seem to be nothing more than a well-preserved relic of some ancient forest. But within its crystalline framework is a geological diary, quietly recording the rise and fall of continents, extreme underground temperatures and the dramatic shuffles of Earth's crust, all over hundreds of millions of years. In a groundbreaking discovery scientists have learned that fossilized wood can preserve much more than the remains of ancient trees, it can tell us the remarkable geological history of an entire region.