Scuba divers have discover a 50,000 year - old Bald Cypress forest that was likely uncovered when Hurricane Katrina swept through the area back in 2005 .
The forest had been buried under sea sediments , create a protective , atomic number 8 - free environment for nearly 52,000 geezerhood . The tree stumps span an region approximately 0.5 square miles ( 0.8 kilometre ) just off the coast of Mobile , Alabama , and rest about 60 foot ( 18 meter ) below the open .
fit in to Ben Raines , one of the first divers to explore the submersed wood , the trees are so well - preserved that , when they are cut back , they still smell like fresh Cypress sap .
Credit : Dave Carlton .
Tia Ghose , who conk out the chronicle on LiveScience , narrate the breakthrough :
Raines was talking with a friend who owned a dive shop about a yr after Hurricane Katrina . The dive shop class owner intrust that a local fisher had found a land site teeming with fish and wildlife and suspected that something magnanimous was hidden below . The diver go down to search and recover a forest of tree , then secern Raines about his stunning discovery .
But because scuba diver often take artifacts from shipwrecks and other sites , the dive workshop possessor refused to disclose the location for many years , Raines said .
In 2012 , the owner in the end unwrap the site ’s location after aver Raines to secretiveness . Raines then did his own nose dive and discovered a primeval Cypress swampland in pristine experimental condition . The wood had become an artificial Witwatersrand , pull fish , crustaceans , sea anemones and other underwater living burrow between the root word of dislodged stumps .
Scientists only have a few year to study the submerged timber before it gets decimated by Natalie Wood - burrowing nautical animal . One affair they ’ll be interested in studying are the Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree ’s growth halo , which will indicate the climate of the Gulf during this time — what is known as the Wisconsin Glacial period .
There’smuch more to this storyover at LiveScience , admit a video .
Marine biologyPaleontology
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