Metasequoia occidentalis is an extinct redwood species of the family Cupressaceae that is found as fossils throughout the Northern Hemisphere.

[2][3] The species was first described in 1863 from fossils found in the outcrops of the Late Paleocene-Middle Eocene Chuckanut Formation around Birch Bay, Washington.

Fossilized Metasequoia-like remains were noted in Europe and North America from the 1800s on, but were assigned to the cupressaceous genera Sequoia (redwoods) and Taxodium (bald cypresses).

By the Tertiary period, it had become a major constituent of lowland and swampy forests in the northern circum-Pacific and polar regions, where it commonly coexisted with Glyptostrobus europaeus.

Fossils assignable to M. occidentalis have been reported from parts of the United States, Canada, Russia, China, Japan, Greenland and Svalbard, but Metasequoia appears to have been rare or absent in much of Europe.