Forest of 10,000 years

2000/04/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Giza zientziak

A group of researchers from the Michigan Tecnological Institute find near Lake Michigan a preserved forest for 10,000 years.

The trees that make up the forest suddenly died and have remained dead for thousands of years, without rotting and without becoming fossils.

The found trunks have bark and branches, found in the ground thorns, pineapples and moss. The logs were 5 to 50 cm in diameter and the longest were 9 m. Forest research has given two main consequences: that the appearance of boreal forests has only varied for 10,000 years and that there may be abrupt climate changes.

The trees grew slowly and at constant speed, a sign that the temperature was stable, but they died unexpectedly.

The researchers hypothesis is that 10,000 years ago most of North America was covered with ice and abrupt warming caused a strong melting of ice and flooding. The trees killed by the unique situation of the place have reached us.