Fossil wood occurs widely throughout the geological record from the Upper Devonian to the present. If ring-width sequences are measured, then much interpretation is possible from the data. Crossdating between trees may be possible but this has not been much used in palaeodendrology. A different approach is to collect large numbers of published records of fossil wood and plot them on palaeomaps.
Pictures then emerge of global palaeoclimates.
Where data is available from the stumps of a fossil forest, calculation of wood production per square unit of forest floor, as practised by the forestry industry, is possible.