30-million-year-old fossilized rainforest evidence unearthed from treeless Falkland Islands, stunned researchers

Experts have uncovered what they believe to be a forest underneath Stanley on the Falkland Islands. Findings regarding this discovery have been published in the journal Antarctic Science. Pollen record suggests that the forest was dominated by southern beech and podocarp relatives. Further analysis reveals that the forest dates back to the mid-to-late Cenozoic period. During this time, several warmer intervals in the weather allowed trees to grow poleward onto the islands. Researchers claim that forests provide a glimpse into the planet's climate history. 

Current Treeless Existence

At present, the Falkland Islands do not host many trees, according to Earth.com. However, the finding suggests that this was not always the case. Once upon a time, it reportedly had conditions to support a cool-temperate forest, which was shaded, wet, and biologically rich. The buried forest came forth during construction work at Stanley. Experts spotted several plant-heavy sediments in the bed placed 20 feet beneath the ground, which contained items, like microscopic grains and real pieces of ancient wood. Researchers specifically focused on three kinds of items for this study: pollen grains, spores, and chunks of fossilized wood.

Secret Buried Forest

Further investigation revealed that the buried forest bed was 30 million years old, according to the University of Southampton. Researchers compared the buried forest to rainforests found in Tierra del Fuego, off the tip of South America, completely opposite to the rugged and grassland landscape, now present in the South Atlantic archipelago. The discovery was initially kept a secret within the tight-knit community of Port Stanley, the Falklands' capital. It was through some chance conversations that the team became aware of the building site at Tussac House near Stanley Harbor, where the forest was hidden.

The team was shocked to uncover perfectly preserved prehistoric tree remains and pollen. "Excavators at the site of a new care home in Stanley had cut into a deep peat layer, which was filled with large tree trunks and branches. These were so well preserved, they looked like they'd been buried the day before, but they were in fact extremely old," Dr Zoë Thomas, study's lead author, shared.

The Falkland Islands have not been able to sustain trees for millions of years, due to the windy atmosphere and acidic soil, according to researchers. They took samples of peat layers and other deposits for testing in Australia. Since the tree remains were too old for radiocarbon dating, they used pollen spores. A variety of spores were present in the same layers of peat as they examined the wood. The results suggested that the tree trunks and branches were 15 to 30 million years old.

Findings from the Study

Tens of millions of years ago, the climate in the South Atlantic was warmer and wetter than it is today. It could have supported a rainforest environment, which may have been cooler than even the Amazon rainforest. Despite lower temperatures, it was still able to host a rich and diverse ecosystem of plant and animal life. Multiple tree species that have been detected in the buried forest bed are extinct now. Experts speculate that the seeds of this species once came to the region through westerly winds from rainforests that covered much of the southern hemisphere.

Researchers found three species of beech and conifer in the buried bed, and many species were close relatives of the trees now found in Patagonia, according to CNN. "The Falkland Islands are currently covered by grasslands and lack native trees," Michael Donovan, paleobotany collections manager at Chicago's Field Museum, added. "The fossil pollen, spores, and wood presented in this study paint a much different picture of the ancient environment, providing direct evidence of the presence of cool, wet forests." The sharp differences in the past and present of the Falkland Islands make it a potent location for studying climate change in the Southern Hemisphere.

However, scientists are unsure what exactly led to the demise of the forest, but they believe climate change could be the culprit. There was a shift from moisture to colder and drier conditions, which possibly triggered the devastation. Researchers don't think that the region will ever return to its glory days. "Current projections suggest the region will get warmer, but also drier – leading to concerns about the risk of erosion to the peatlands, which are sensitive to climate change," Thomas explained.