Written by Pam Frost Gorder, Ohio State University
The northernmost mummified forest ever found in the Canada is revealing how plants struggled to withstand global cooling long - ago.
Researchers believe the trees - buried by a landslide terrain and exquisite kept 2.8 million years ago - will help to predict how Arctic today respond to global warming.
Also, they suspect that many more mummified forests emerge everywhere in North America as the Arctic ice continues to melt. The wood is exposed and begins to rot, it could release large quantities of methane and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere - and actually stimulate global warming.
Joel Barker, researcher at the Centre of the Byrd Polar Research School Science Earth at Ohio State University and leader of the team analyzes the remains will describe the first results of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, meeting on Friday, December 17.
During the summer of 2010, researchers extract sample trees broken branches, roots and leaves-all perfectly preserved - from Ellesmere Island in the Canada national park.
"Mummified forests are not so rare, but what makes this unique is that it is so far to the North." When climate began to cool the 11 million years ago, these plants would have been the first to feel the effects, "said Barker." "And because organic tree is preserved, we can achieve a high display resolution of the speed with which the climate is changing and how plants have responded to this change."
Barker has found the filing in 2009, when he was camping on Ellesmere Island to an unrelated research project. He took one end of a national park warden who noticed some wood glue side of a glacier melting mud. This summer, he returned with colleagues for a detailed study of the region.
Analysis remains simply start, but will include chemical and DNA tests.
So far, researchers have identified the most common tree species on the site - spruce and birch. Trees were at least 75 years when they died, but grêles with very narrow rings and size under the leaves which suggest they suffer many stress when they were alive.
"These trees lived in a particularly turbulent time in the Arctic," said Barker. "Ellesmere Island quickly shifted from a deciduous forest environment warm in an environment Evergreen towards sterile exfoliation that we see today." Trees would have to bear half of the year in the dark and a cooling climate. This is why rings show that they have so few and so slowly. »
Colleagues at the University of Minnesota identified the wood in the deposit and commercial laboratory in Calgary, Alberta, pollen analysis revealed that the trees have lived there, in the Neogene period about 2.8 million years ago. Pollen will come only a handful of plant species, suggesting that Arctic biodiversity has begun to suffer during this period as well.
The team is now working to identify other plants mummified site, analysis remains in microscopes to discover possible seeds or insects remain.
Now that the forest is exposed, he began to rot, which means that it is releasing carbon into the atmosphere, where it can contribute to global warming.
Team Member David Elliot, Emeritus Professor of the State of Ohio, Earth sciences stated that forest momifiée on Ellesmere Island does not pose an immediate threat to the environment, though.
"I want to be clear - the carbon contained in the small deposit that we studied is negligible compared to what produce you when you drive your car", he said. "But if you look at this discovery in the context of the whole Arctic, then it is a different issue." I would expect my other deposits isolated to be exposed as the melting of ice and all that biomass will finally return to carbon dioxide if exposed to air.
"It is a great country, and unless the people decide to walk around in the Canadian Arctic, we do not know how many deposits are there", he added.
Other collaborators on the project include Yu-Ping Chin, Professor of Earth in the State of Ohio and Joel Jurgens and Robert Blanchette, two pathologists at the University of Minnesota.
This research was funded by a rapid-concept of frontier research in the National Science Foundation grant.
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Image 1: Ellesmere Island national park to the Canada. Ohio State University researchers and their colleagues have discovered the remains of a mummified forest who lived on the island of 2.8 million years ago, when the Arctic cooling. Leftovers may provide clues about how Arctic today respond to global warming. Photo by Joel Barker, courtesy of the Ohio State University.
Image 2: An outcrop of tree mummified remains on Ellesmere Island to the Canada. A melting glacier found trees, buried by a mudslide of 2.8 million years ago, when the Arctic cooling. Leftovers may provide clues about how Arctic today respond to global warming. Photo by Joel Barker, courtesy of the Ohio State University.
Image 3: A Birch leaves found on Ellesmere Island in the Canada mummified. Ohio State University researchers and their colleagues have discovered the remains of a mummified forest who lived on the island of 2.8 million years ago, when the Arctic cooling. Leftovers may provide clues about how Arctic today respond to global warming. Photo by Joel Barker, courtesy of the Ohio State University.
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