Sphagnum palustre less frequent just North of London and west through to Bristol and patches in the Republic of Ireland. It is widespread in Scotland, Wales, Orkney, Shetland and the Isle of Man. It can be found on Scilly. "Sphagnum palustre" is not on the IUCN red list of threatened species and therefore isn’t considered to be threatened or endangered. In a project called Mossclone which is part of the 7th framework program of the European Union the peat moss "Sphagnum palustre" will be multiplied in moss bioreactors to create a measuring tool to track air quality in Europe. Sphagnum palustre Sphagnum
Moss Antarctica and Russia, and a case is put forwards for Carboniferous mosses. It has further been claimed that tube-like fossils from the Silurian are the macerated remains of moss calyptræ. Mosses also appear to evolve 2–3 times slower than ferns, gymnosperms and angiosperms. Recent research show that ancient moss could explain why the Ordovician ice ages occurred. When the ancestors of today's moss started to spread on land 470 million years ago, they absorbed CO from the atmosphere and extracted minerals by secreting organic acids that dissolved the rocks they were growing on. These chemically altered rocks in turn reacted