Sunday 12 April 2020

60,000-Year-Old Underwater Forest May Hold Next Medical Breakthrough!

11 APRIL, 2020,  ASHLEY COWIE
https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/ancient-forest-0013554

Wood from an ancient bald cypress forest buried off the coast of Alabama was uncovered by storms. Newly exposed wood offers a unique habitat for marine organisms and creates a novel ecosystem in the Gulf of Mexico. Source: Francis Choi

About 60,000 years ago, pre-historic humans began emerging out of Africa and shared hunting places and cave residences with Neanderthal populations in what is today Europe. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, a vast cypress tree forest carpeted riverbanks off the coast of Alabama in Mobile Bay in the Gulf of Mexico. The ancient underwater forest of withering trees and the shipworms they contain were entombed beneath encroaching sediments and sea waters until Hurricane Ivan tore up the Gulf Coast in 2004 and exposed the ancient forest, which was discovered 60 feet below the surface water of Mobile Bay.
The Ancient Secrets of Modern Medicine

A new documentary film by Ben Raines produced by This is Alabama, reveals how dive shop owner Chas Broughton first discovered evidence of the ancient forest and invited an environmental journalist and scientists from the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration ( NOAA) to assess his find. The results were published on the NOAA Ocean Exploration & Research website, saying this ancient submerged forest has remained undisturbed for thousands of years and that it holds “the secret to the creation of new medicines .”

https://youtu.be/PKm0eRfFFfo

A report in Nature World News says Dr. Kristine DeLong from the Louisiana State University (LSU); marine scientist Robin Cobb from LSU; and Dr. Grant Harley, a dendrochronologist from the University of Southern Mississippi collected and analyzed tree samples to determine the type of marine environment in which the forest had been entombed, and what the climatological conditions were like when the forest was alive.
300 Ancient Animals Found Entombed in Submerged Forest

A sample of tree sap was recovered from within the bark of one tree, that when cut released resin strong enough to “permeate the air” and the tree’s fibers and growth rings were still visible. Dr. Harley said the tree’s growth rings were narrower and were more uniform in size than those of modern cypress trees, indicating the environment was much colder than our current climate , and Dr. DeLong radiocarbon dated the sample at 40,000-45,000 years old.


Collected from an ancient cypress forest submerged in Mobile Bay, this log contains hundreds of marine organisms that either burrow into the wood or live in burrows made by other organisms. ( Brian Helmuth )



Last December, NOAA-funded an expedition of scientists from the University of Utah and Northeastern University , and marine and environmental sciences professor Brian Helmuth, who determined that the ancient trees were very well preserved under sediment layers that had prevented oxygenation and decomposition. It was Francis Choi, a senior lab manager at Northeastern University Marine Science Center , who looked at organisms buried within the wood and discovered 300 ancient animals.




Collected from an ancient cypress forest submerged in Mobile Bay, this log contains hundreds of marine organisms that either burrow into the wood or live in burrows made by other organisms. ( Brian Helmuth )



Last December, NOAA-funded an expedition of scientists from the University of Utah and Northeastern University , and marine and environmental sciences professor Brian Helmuth, who determined that the ancient trees were very well preserved under sediment layers that had prevented oxygenation and decomposition. It was Francis Choi, a senior lab manager at Northeastern University Marine Science Center , who looked at organisms buried within the wood and discovered 300 ancient animals.




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