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

Most of us know that Antarctica is a frosty wilderness covered in thick compacted ice. 280-million-year-old tree fossils, Which is believed to be evidence of the oldest polar forest, have been discovered by the team of Geologists in Antartica. This can be thougt as dating back to before the first dinosaurs walked the Earth. Now the team is braving the land of ice once more to uncover clues as to how forests once flourished there.

Erik Gulbranson and John Isbell from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee trekked across the Transantarctic Mountains during the continent's summer, between November and January. They found the ancient ​specimens among the rocks where a leafy forest once grew. The team have now returned to the frozen slopes once more to find out how the forest could have flourished there. The polar forest grew at a latitude where plants can't grow today and scientists are now trying to understand why they went extinct (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee/Screengrab)