Artic lime trees

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33065, 4 November 1972, Page 12

Artic lime trees

There were lime trees on the Arctic islands of Spitsbergen millions of years ago. A Soviet expedition, equipped with ships and helicopters, is exploring two almost unknown islands of the Spitsbergen archipelago, Medveshy and Nadezhda. In some of their researches they are to be helped by geologists from Norway. Spitsbergen, a giant natural refrigerator on the seventyeighth and seventy-ninth parallels, has been recently attracting attention from geologists, glaciologists, botanists and archaeologists. Leningrad biologists for instance, have proved that oak, lime and sequoia trees grew there in the distant past On the slopes of the iceclad mountains, they found traces of plants of tertiary times in a very good state of preservation. Archaeologists have discovered that man lived there too, tens of thousands of years ago. Fragments of rock drawings have been found and the silhouettes of a deer and a whale are clearly to be seen on the stone.—Novosti. •