Ancient trees

Fossilised trees -that is, trees which are now stone - are not uncommon; I remember looking at some in Edinburgh very recently.  And there are well preserved forests, mainly stumps and fallen trees, several thousands of years old in places like Rannoch Moor, preserved by the anoxic peat.  And, of course, we burn ancient trees all the time in the form of lignite or coal.

But now comes news of ancient trees perhaps 8 million years old in Hungary, which are still wood, and still brown.  They are swamp cypresses, some of them 10 feet in diameter and 20 feet high, discovered in a lignite mine, but protected by sand until now.  They will have interesting things to tell us about forests of the period, and the climate, and probably too about small insects which may be in the wood.  The link at the beginning of this paragraph has more, and a short film of these amazing relicts.

Comments

[BooksPlease]

Fascinating, thanks for the link.