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.
damn suv's
So, maybe not the day after tomorrow, but sometime next week? HEHE.
they finally found Atlantis......great.......
Climate change? Perhaps he is reading too much into a local event.
Amazingly..Cher was also discovered there..she has been around forever...
What's a mangrove?
Since there weren't any Republicans around who the heck are they gonna blame that on?
Does this mean the Alien ships ran on fossil fuels?
Male of womangroove!
Let's see, a rapid rising of the water about 9-10 thousand years ago. Did it happen over 40 days?
GGG PING
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
But the Left insists that this is caused by SUV's.
Oh, and scientwists discovered tha womangrooves were superior to mangroves, but they could not swim.
Bush's fault. Kyoto and all that.
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, thats 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.
"Theres 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.
BTW- They're dead right If so might be good evidence of the Flood. They were rapidly covered in water. Just wondering...
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.
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.
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