PORES on the surface of fossilised leaves could hold clues to the rate at which mountains grew and how they changed the climate around them.
Mountains and plateaux present a physical barrier to air and wildlife, so discovering how fast they formed can be vital to understanding weather systems and the evolution of ecosystems millions of years ago. Till now, the only way to do this was to estimate the change in the elevation of particular rocks over time using, for example, the size and shape of fossilised leaves. This in turn relies on knowing the climate millions of years…
