Prehistoric forest well preserved
NZPA-AFP Montreal, A paleontologist has found a 45 million-year-old fossil forest on Axel Heiberg Island, In Canada’s far north, and reported It was so well preserved his team cut off fragments of wood and burnt them. Professor James Basinger of Saskatchewan University, said the forest lay only 1100 km from the North Pole. The exact location is being kept secret to avoid the forest being plundered by souvenir seekers. A team found dawn redwoods and water firs and several species which are now extinct. "The freshness of their appearance makes it look as if someone went in and logged the area last year," Professor Basinger said. “In places you can reach down and dig out mats of leaves. These leaves look fresh, as if you had just plucked them off the tree.”
The team is now trying to determine how the forest came to be so well preserved. A first idea is that it was probably buried for a long time.
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Press, 2 September 1986, Page 35
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165Prehistoric forest well preserved Press, 2 September 1986, Page 35
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