Geological history is extremely exciting, it allows us to understand the processes our planet has gone through. Perhaps human life is so ephemeral compared to the millions of years of the Earth, that it is difficult for us to imagine everything it has gone through. What stands today as solid ground, in the past could have been in the depths of the ocean and vice versa. Thus, researchers have discovered, submerged in the Gulf of Mexico, a lush cypress forest. And its features are so amazing that it has become a living laboratory for biologists.
60 thousand years ago, the Gulf of Mexico was not below the depths of ocean waters. But it was solid land and on it stretched a large forest of cypress trees, rich in . In 2004, after Hurricane Ivan hit the Caribbean coast, the remains of the cypress forest emerged from the depths.
Later, researchers decided to embark on an adventure to discover what lies hidden there. The forest in the Gulf of Mexico has become a living laboratory for biologists. Thanks to this, we know that the small amount of oxygen has kept the wood intact. Currently they are rich in bacteria and bivalve mollusks live there, a species of mollusks that have a shell made up of two shells.
Violent rise in sea level
At the time the forest lived on land, sea level was approximately 120 meters below today’s level. Back then, records suggest that the Earth was going through its last ice age, so the global temperature was much colder than now. This allowed the cypress trees to breathe frozen air.
Image: Sea Change Project
But since everything on the planet has a cycle, the ice age ended and the ice bodies melted. This caused a violent rise in ocean levels which, in turn, left people submerged in the waters. Many landscapes disappeared from the face of the Earth, hit by pieces of ice and currents of . However, the cypress forest in the Gulf of Mexico was an exception, as it was kept safe from everything and became part of the underwater landscape.
Today it remains preserved thanks to the water conditions and the low oxygen of the habitat. In addition, a new ecosystem has emerged made up of millions of bacteria that are the object of study by biologists. Nature acts in mysterious ways, we just have to let ourselves be surprised to discover places that seem straight out of a .