![]() ![]() In effect, the trees have been hermetically sealed in place in a sort of natural time capsule. Underwater, where there is no oxygen, there is no decomposition. That mud protected the trees from decomposition because they sealed them away from the oxygen-rich Gulf water. The scientists believe the trees were buried under layers of mud in an age when sea levels were suddenly on the rise. And there are thousands of them, part of a vast and swampy floodplain forest. These trees sprouting from the sea floor off Alabama are so much older that they provide a window into a past scientists are still trying to understand. A few trees, perhaps 1,000 years old, have been found off the English coast, and a handful of other places, but they grew in a world we understand well, one much like our own in every way. Nothing like the forest, in terms of age or scale, has ever been found. Swimming through the forest, it is possible to trace the path of an ancient river, seen above, that once wove through the site when it was dry land. Time traveling below the waves Dropping 10 fathoms down, below the green waves of the Gulf and back in time to this prehistoric world amounts to a sort of time traveler's journey. The film was written and directed by this writer, AL.com's Ben Raines, who also filmed the underwater sequences and organized the first scientific missions to the site. It will be broadcast on Alabama Public Television at 6 p.m. ![]() You can watch the film above, on Youtube, or on This is Alabama's Roku and Apple TV apps. The work of the team investigating the site is detailed in the new documentary, The Underwater Forest, co-produced by This is Alabamaand the Alabama Coastal Foundation. One of the key things the forest might hint at is a world where the seas rose even more quickly than the worst-case predictions for the near future. Scientific analysis of the site is ongoing. It is considered a treasure trove of information, providing new insights into everything from climate in the region to annual rainfall, insect populations, and the types of plants that inhabited the Gulf Coast before humans arrived in the new world. The forest appears to be a wholly unique relic of our planet's past, the only known site where a coastal ice age forest this old has been preserved in place, with thousands of trees still rooted in the dirt they were growing millennia ago. The ancient cypress forest found 60 feet underwater in the Gulf of Mexico, due south of Gulf Shores, Ala., is about 60,000 years old, says a team of scientists who have studied the site. ![]()
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