Translate

Friday 2 March 2012

Tough As Wood

The expression "Tough As Wood" has taken on new meaning, after scientists in Scandinavia reported that many of the trees in that area of the world are direct descendants of trees that inhabited those lands before the last Ice Age .... they had always thought the trees all migrated back in to the area 9,000 yrs or so ago.

Scandinavian Forests - Ice Age Survivors
Scandinavian Forests - Ice Age Survivors

The researchers came to this conclusion by studying the DNA of both the modern spruce (which distinctly show two Scandinavian types), and by analysing the composition of pine and spruce DNA contained in the sediments taken from lake-core samples from before the ice age. 
 
The exact mechanism for this amazing survival in the middle of the ice sheets for tens of thousands of years is not known, but its speculated that trees could have survived on nunataks (mountain tops and other bits of land sticking out above the miles of ice sheet), and then were able to spread once the ice retreated.

Nature never ceases to amaze in its abilities to survive the worst, but whether it can survive mankind is another matter.

No comments:

Post a Comment

All comments are welcomed, or even just thanks if you enjoyed the post. But please make any comment relevant to the post it appears under. Off topic comments will be blocked or removed.

Moderation is on for older posts to stop spamming and comments that are off topic or inappropriate from being posted .... comments are reviewed within 48 hours. I don't block normal comments that are on topic and not inappropriate. Vexatious comments that may cause upset to other commentators, or that are attempting to espouse a particular wider political view, are reviewed before acceptance. But a certain amount of debate around a post topic is accepted, as long as it remains generally on topic and is not an attempt to become sounding board for some other cause.

Final decision on all comments is held by the blog author and is final.

Comments are always monitored for bad or abusive language, and or illegal statements i.e. overtly racist or sexist content. Spam is not tolerated and is removed.

Commentaires ne sont surveillés que pour le mauvais ou abusif langue ou déclarations illégales ie contenu ouvertement raciste ou sexiste. Spam ne est pas toléré et est éliminé.

Followers

Blog Archive

Its a Pucking World

Its a Pucking World
Dreamberry Wine Cover

About Me

My photo
A middle aged orange male ... So 'un' PC it's not true....