Geologists Have Discovered 280-Million-Year-Old Fossilized Forest In Antartica

Professor Gulbranson said people have known about the fossils in Antarctica since around 1910 but most of the region remains unexplored. The polar forest grew at a latitude where plants can't grow today and he believed they must have been an extremely hearty species in order to survive. The team is now trying to understand why they went extinct. (Partial tree trunk with the base preserved, at the site in Svalbard (left) and a reconstruction of what the ancient forest look liked 380 million years ago)