11 votes

Efforts are under way to designate the site of a 60,000 year old submerged forest off the Alabama coast a marine sanctuary

Posted by spit-evil-olive-tips
Tags: conservation, usa.al, forests, paleontology, coastlines, ecosystems, sanctuaries, biology.marine, author.paola rosa aquino, source.the guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/20/ancient-underwater-forest-alabama-coast

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Title
'One of a kind': calls to protect Alabama's 60,000-year-old underwater forest
Published
Jan 20 2021
Word count
765 words

1 comment

  1. spit-evil-olive-tips
    Link
    A furniture company. A fucking furniture company. This is a priceless scientific site, and a furniture company wants to dig it up and sell what I assume will be $1,000+ end tables made from...

    Submerged below the waters are the remains of a cypress tree forest that grew 60,000 years ago, but was inundated by the Gulf of Mexico and preserved from decomposition beneath sediment. Nothing like Alabama’s underwater forest, in terms of age or scale, has ever been found.

    It took giant waves driven by Hurricane Ivan in 2004 to exhume the forest from its seafloor grave. In 2012, environmental journalist Ben Raines went in search of the arboreal seascape after he was tipped off by a savvy source in the local diving community.

    But the site is at risk from salvage companies seeking to dig up the ancient logs and sell them. According to DeLong, the army corps of engineers had received a permit request in 2020 from a furniture company seeking to salvage wood from the site.

    A furniture company.

    A fucking furniture company.

    This is a priceless scientific site, and a furniture company wants to dig it up and sell what I assume will be $1,000+ end tables made from "60,000 year old reclaimed natural wood".

    5 votes