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Researchers have found 9,000-year-old mangrove forests.
Australian Broadcasting ^ | February 23, 2005 | Reuters

Posted on 02/22/2005 7:19:40 PM PST by Lessismore

Ancient mangrove forests found under reef North Queensland marine researchers have opened a window into the past by exposing ancient mangrove forests entombed beneath the Great Barrier Reef.

Dr Dan Alongi from the Australian Institute of Marine Science says they have unearthed 9,000-year-old mangroves in old river channels that were swamped when sea levels rose after the last ice age.

He says the relic mangroves show an abrupt rise in the sea level, 20 times faster than previously thought.

"Material was very much intact, it didn't even have time to fully decompose when it was buried, so it does tell us that when climate change happened at least when it happened in the past it was comparatively quick," he said.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: archaeology; archeology; ggg; godsgravesglyphs; history; mangrove; mangroves
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1 posted on 02/22/2005 7:19:41 PM PST by Lessismore
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To: Lessismore

damn suv's


2 posted on 02/22/2005 7:21:28 PM PST by Flavius ("... we should reconnoitre assiduosly... " Vegetius)
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To: Lessismore

So, maybe not the day after tomorrow, but sometime next week? HEHE.


3 posted on 02/22/2005 7:21:52 PM PST by phoenix0468 (One man with courage is a majority. (Andrew Jackson))
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To: Lessismore

they finally found Atlantis......great.......


4 posted on 02/22/2005 7:23:55 PM PST by NorCalRepub
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To: Lessismore
Material was very much intact, it didn't even have time to fully decompose when it was buried, so it does tell us that when climate change happened at least when it happened in the past it was comparatively quick," he said.

Climate change? Perhaps he is reading too much into a local event.

5 posted on 02/22/2005 7:26:26 PM PST by Lester Moore (Islam's Allah is Satan and is NOT the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.)
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To: Lessismore

Amazingly..Cher was also discovered there..she has been around forever...

6 posted on 02/22/2005 7:26:34 PM PST by BerniesFriend
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To: Lessismore

What's a mangrove?


7 posted on 02/22/2005 7:26:42 PM PST by Lijahsbubbe
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To: Lessismore
when climate change happened at least when it happened in the past it was comparatively quick

Since there weren't any Republicans around who the heck are they gonna blame that on?

8 posted on 02/22/2005 7:27:59 PM PST by Reagan is King (The modern definition of 'racist' is someone who is winning an argument with a liberal.)
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To: Lessismore

Does this mean the Alien ships ran on fossil fuels?


9 posted on 02/22/2005 7:29:14 PM PST by Ragnorak
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To: Lijahsbubbe

Male of womangroove!


10 posted on 02/22/2005 7:30:30 PM PST by Leo Carpathian (FReeeePeee!)
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Let's see, a rapid rising of the water about 9-10 thousand years ago. Did it happen over 40 days?


11 posted on 02/22/2005 7:30:32 PM PST by mhuye (http://theonewhoislost.blogspot.com/)
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To: SunkenCiv

GGG PING


12 posted on 02/22/2005 7:30:35 PM PST by FairOpinion (It is better to light a candle, than curse the darkness.)
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To: Lessismore

Oh my gosh! It's true, then.


THE SKY IS FALLING.


Quick, get a big US Gummit grant to the Great Barrier Reef Mangrove investigators.

/sarcasm


13 posted on 02/22/2005 7:31:54 PM PST by Ole Okie
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To: Lessismore
[...the Australian Institute of Marine Science says they have unearthed 9,000-year-old mangroves....that were swamped when sea levels rose after the last ice age....the relic mangroves show an abrupt rise in the sea level, 20 times faster than previously thought.]

But the Left insists that this is caused by SUV's.

14 posted on 02/22/2005 7:32:04 PM PST by Mad_Tom_Rackham (This just in from CBS: "There is no bias at CBS")
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To: Leo Carpathian

Oh, and scientwists discovered tha womangrooves were superior to mangroves, but they could not swim.


15 posted on 02/22/2005 7:32:25 PM PST by Leo Carpathian (FReeeePeee!)
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To: Flavius
"9,000-year-old mangroves in old river channels that were swamped when sea levels rose after the last ice age."

Bush's fault. Kyoto and all that.

16 posted on 02/22/2005 7:33:08 PM PST by Uncle Miltie (Democrat Obstructionists will be Daschled!)
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To: Lessismore

The press release from
http://www.aims.gov.au/news/pages/media-release-20050217.html

Ancient mangrove forests discovered under reef

February 17, 2005

Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) researchers have opened a window into the past by exposing ancient mangrove forests entombed beneath the Great Barrier Reef.

AIMS biologist Dr Dan Alongi said the expedition was surveying the impact of nutrients on coastal inshore areas when scientists unearthed mangrove forests in old river channels they believe may snake for 30 kilometres to the edge of the continental shelf.

Scientists have long theorised that sea level rose very gradually over several thousand years, but these remnant mangrove forests tell another story.

While it was previously known that relic river beds exist beneath the Great Barrier Reef, formed 9000 years ago when the sea level was lower than the continental shelf, their significance was never studied.

"When we took the first samples it was difficult to believe… we stood amazed wondering what exactly we were dealing with. We thought it was cyclone debris, but it was far too deep to be a modern event," said Dr Alongi.

AIMS researchers cored 1-2 metres of sediment and found remnant mangrove 70 centimetres below the surface of the present seafloor.

These core samples of mud are an evolutionary time frame. The evidence will help to establish the state of the reef and nutrient sediment information as it existed prior to human activity.

Dr Alongi said the mangroves were incredibly well preserved; a fact most likely attributed to the antibiotic properties in the concentrated tannins. "The cores still have the characteristic smell of tannins, that’s why we thought they were young.

"Within the cores were intact root systems and parts of trees including twigs and branches that radiocarbon dating put between 8550 and 8740 years of age.

"There’s such an abrupt change in core composition from mud-like substance to intact mangrove branches…from the modern to the ancient, that it suggests a large climate change happened," said Dr Alongi.

"This sharp boundary between these ancient mangroves and the overlying modern mud can tell us something fundamental about how quickly the water rose over time."

Dr Alongi estimates that the shift in sea level occurred over a geologically short time-span, from a few centuries or even decades. Research with fellow AIMS scientists will help to paint a more accurate picture of this timeframe, and investigate the concentration of background radionuclides in the top layers of sediment. These measurements will help pinpoint the period over which the sea level rose.

Knowing how rapidly the seascape changed in the past helps us predict future changes with global warming," said Dr Alongi.


17 posted on 02/22/2005 7:33:22 PM PST by Lessismore
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To: Lessismore

BTW- They're dead right If so might be good evidence of the Flood. They were rapidly covered in water. Just wondering...


18 posted on 02/22/2005 7:34:16 PM PST by onja ("The government of England is a limited mockery.")
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To: Lijahsbubbe

Not only do mangroves produce aerial stems from their roots, they also produce a type of aerial root called rhizophores or pneumatophores. These structures can have bark rich in lenticels to function in gas exchange for roots that are constantly in water saturated soil.

19 posted on 02/22/2005 7:34:22 PM PST by FairOpinion (It is better to light a candle, than curse the darkness.)
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To: Lessismore
it does tell us that when climate change happened at least when it happened in the past it was comparatively quick

I've read that during the last Ice Age the British Isles went from measurably warmer than they are now to glaciated in less than 100 years. There are caves in the Sahara that have wall paintings showing men hunting deer and gazelles in places that have been trackless desert since well before recorded history. Climates change, sometimes rapidly.

20 posted on 02/22/2005 7:38:35 PM PST by Pilsner
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