Sequoia

Sequoia is a genus of redwood coniferous trees in the subfamily Sequoioideae of the family Cupressaceae. The only extant species of the genus is Sequoia sempervirens in the Northern California coastal forests ecoregion of Northern California and Southwestern Oregon in the United States. The two other genera in the subfamily Sequoioideae, Sequoiadendron and Metasequoia, are closely related to Sequoia. It includes the tallest trees, as well as the heaviest, in the world.

Sequoia

KENPEI · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
coast redwoodPBDB
Sits inside
SequoioideaePBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Streptophyta

Time the record covers

At least 139 million years on record.

The record covers at least 143.1 Mya to 3.6 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 174.7 Mya to 2.58 Mya.

Early Jurassic — about 0 of 290 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 290 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 5 of 290 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 29 of 290 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 46 of 290 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 6 of 290 occurrencesEocene — about 57 of 290 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 42 of 290 occurrencesMiocene — about 97 of 290 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 9 of 290 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 290 occurrences178–172 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences172–166 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences166–160 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences160–154 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences154–148 Mya — about 1 occurrence148–143 Mya — about 2 occurrences143–137 Mya — about 1 occurrence137–131 Mya — about 2 occurrences131–125 Mya — about 1 occurrence125–119 Mya — about 2 occurrences119–113 Mya — about 3 occurrences113–107 Mya — about 10 occurrences107–101 Mya — about 10 occurrences101–95 Mya — about 6 occurrences95–89 Mya — about 4 occurrences89–83 Mya — about 4 occurrences83–77 Mya — about 6 occurrences77–71 Mya — about 8 occurrences71–65 Mya — about 19 occurrences65–59 Mya — about 2 occurrences59–53 Mya — about 10 occurrences53–48 Mya — about 14 occurrences48–42 Mya — about 16 occurrences42–36 Mya — about 18 occurrences36–30 Mya — about 15 occurrences30–24 Mya — about 26 occurrences24–18 Mya — about 11 occurrences18–12 Mya — about 52 occurrences12–5.9 Mya — about 34 occurrences5.9–0 Mya — about 12 occurrences143.1 Mya3.6 Mya178 Mya0 Mya

290 occurrences of Sequoia on record, most of them in the Miocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

290 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

60 formations

Hell Creek — 46.21°N, 103.80°WHell Creek — 46.30°N, 103.86°WHell Creek — 46.38°N, 103.95°WHell Creek — 46.46°N, 104.01°WHell Creek — 45.65°N, 103.62°WSepulcher — 44.00°N, 110.00°WSepulcher — 40.00°N, 110.00°WKrivorechenskaya — 64.48°N, 168.92°ECretaceous — 44.65°N, 104.22°WCretaceous — 43.21°N, 104.63°WCretaceous — 43.09°N, 104.53°WFlorissant — 38.92°N, 105.25°WChallis Volcanics — 44.37°N, 114.24°WCheyenne Sandstone — 37.45°N, 99.08°WTuscaloosa — 34.48°N, 88.09°WTuscaloosa — 33.61°N, 87.74°WTuscaloosa — 33.12°N, 87.67°WTuscaloosa — 33.17°N, 87.43°WEutaw — 32.41°N, 84.83°WEutaw — 32.25°N, 84.90°WEutaw — 32.88°N, 87.59°WLatah — 47.75°N, 117.55°WLatah — 47.70°N, 116.75°WLatah — 47.56°N, 117.22°WLatah — 47.65°N, 117.21°WLance — 43.15°N, 104.61°WLance — 41.57°N, 108.67°WLondon Clay — 51.40°N, 0.83°EWoolwich — 51.38°N, 0.10°WTokoname — 34.88°N, 136.85°ETokoname — 34.67°N, 136.92°ELamar River — 44.00°N, 110.00°WMcRae — 33.13°N, 107.25°WLaramie — 44.97°N, 110.67°WLaramie — 44.00°N, 110.00°WBarton Clay — 50.74°N, 1.69°WWulonggu — 47.52°N, 87.08°EShulan — 44.33°N, 127.00°EAllenby — 49.45°N, 120.57°WAllenby — 49.22°N, 119.96°WChausuyama — 36.58°N, 138.17°EOgawa — 36.50°N, 138.00°EYadagawa — 35.00°N, 136.00°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Sequoia has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 36 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 144 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Sequoia and its relatives

Miocene

Where Sequoia and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

1,958 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 130 sites for Sequoia, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

75 references

Each of the 290 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 63 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content3

Picture of Sequoia

Credit
KENPEI
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Sequoia sempervirens · ku:kupb

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itSequoioideae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Endlicher 1847