Ancient trees puzzle divers
BALD CYPRESS trees became established in swampland in what is now the northern Gulf of Mexico during the last Ice Age, before an unknown cataclysmic event buried the ancient forests.
Now scuba-divers have been recovering the trees from sediment beneath the Gulf waters – and finding it smelling as fragrant as when it was buried in the Pleistocene era.
In 2004 Hurricane Ivan cut across the region and exposed the ancient forest, say researchers at Louisiana State University (LSU).