Source: Ancient forest lies 10 miles off the Alabama coast (video, gallery) | al.com Paleo global warming deniers? Bob Wilson
Is there a point in there somewhere that relates to either side of the AGW controversy? Both the time frame and required sea level change easily fit within the commonly agreed ranges for the most recent ice age.
Just idle speculations and remembering sea levels of the past. Although the great ice age is ended, we still have these rapidly shrinking, land glaciers, reduced sea ice at both poles, and apparently, Greenland has an occasional heat-wave. So I was thinking of urban cities that like the Cypress of ten thousand years ago, may become new playgrounds for the fishes. Bob Wilson
During the N. Amer. glacial max (the most recent one) the ice sheet was well into (what are now the) northern US states. Close to the ice, it was whacking cold. Trees that we now see as making the northern forest ran far to the south, in the only way that trees can, by making pine cones and acorns and so forth and 'hoping' that some bird or rodent will help out. I remember that Paul and Hazel Delcourt did fundamental work on those paleoforests, and there are probably now new leaders in that field. What I don't remember is a deep consideration that some of the Pleistocene forest refugia may mave been in what is now offshore. So, this is interesting stuff. In those same times, the SE Asian tropical forest was largely continuous. Now sea level is up and you have a bunch of islands with restricted dispersal among them. These are highly significant aspects of terrestrial ecosystems and ignoring them limits our ability to understand 'what is where' at present. So I find it fully appropriate for the 'enviro' section, whether or not it helps us anticipate climates of the future.
I hope that somebody has the funding to collect some of that cypress wood; it may hold some interesting growth rings, chemistry etc. Washed free of sediment, it will be quickly eaten by critters like gribbles and shipworms.
Bubba tells me he'd have to let it dry out for at least two years before we could burn it. Bob Wilson
In Ghana, dam created an artificial lake in the 60's. Still standing (at the bottom) some valuble trees that have mostly been depleted from the forests more recently. A company has found profit in harvesting trees from the bottom with a submarine. The sub is called 'sawfish' and that's pretty entertaining. Also boatloads of something (chestnut?) that sunk in Lake Superior ~100 yr ago have been raised, dried and sold. So you can sell the "young stuff', but that 1000s-yr-old wood may have some 'science' in it, OK?
Failing my first choice, I'd just as soon Bubba burned it as gribbles and shipworms eat it. Nobody interested in shipworms eh? Fascinating creatures Return of a castaway: the gripping story of a boring clam. - Free Online Library
The chestnut would be more valuable, but any lumber from that time is actually better than the farmed stuff we cut now. It had denser grain. Making it stronger and more aesthetically pleasing. It is also popular for musical instrutments. Redwood is also being salvaged from Northwest rivers. There is also a wide, slow growing tree in ,IIRC, New Guinea that was a popular choice for lumber. It's protected now, but they mine fallen trees from the bogs. Some of those can have been it the ground for centuries. These Gulf trees have a high science value to them, but it might take a logging venture to get the samples.
