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.

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)