Mummified Forest Reveals Clues About Climate Change
Warming temperatures and retreating glacial ice sheets expose land where ancient forests once stood
22 December 2010
Mummified tree remains, dating back between 2 and 10 million years, were discovered on Ellesmere Island in the Canadian High Arctic.
A discovery of a mummified forest that's between two and 10 million years old is giving scientists a new window on climate change.
Joel Barker, a research scientist at the Byrd Polar Research Center at the Ohio State University, discovered the mummified forest in 2009. He says a forest ranger on a remote Island in the Canadian Arctic pointed out a stick in the mud in an otherwise barren landscape.
"And sure enough there was all this wood debris at the bottom of this valley," Barker says.
The Ellesmere Island site is one of about a dozen in the Canadian Arctic where warming temperatures and reduced snowfall have caused the glacial ice sheets to retreat and expose land where ancient forests once stood. Barker says what makes this particular forest site unique is that it was so far north.
"To find the source of where this stuff was coming from was pretty exciting. And then to sort of dig in the soil and find leaves, much like the leaves that you'd find in the Spring sort of emerging from a melting snow pack. They look sort of weathered, but you can pick them up and they are still leaves you are holding in your hands from a couple of million years ago."
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