10,000-year-old forest submerged under the sea
Remains of a dense ancient forest discovered off the coast of Lithuania could reveal a lot about life at the end of the Ice Age.
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Rising sea levels during the Ice Age submerged the ancient forest. Photo:Pinterest. |
Polish and Lithuanian researchers are exploring a 10,000-year-old submerged forest in the village of Juodkrante near the coastal city of Klaipėda in western Lithuania. During their expedition last month, they took thousands of photos, including more than 3,000 of two large tree trunks. The photos will be used to create a 3D model of the ancient forest.
Once a dense forest, the tree trunks were submerged at the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age. The Pleistocene began about 2.6 million years ago and ended 11,700 years ago. As the ice melted, the Baltic Sea rose, inundating vast areas like this forest.
The forest was discovered by a team from Klaipėda University while scanning the seabed. They conducted the research together with experts from the Polish National Maritime Museum in Gdansk. They believe the area may have been inhabited and hope to find evidence of early human settlement.
