Dozens of whitebark pine trees were covered by the ice patch for over 5,000 years, and now warming temperatures have revealed them once again.
Daniel StahleMore than 30 perfectly-preserved pine trees were revealed by the melting ice patch.
Beneath the melting ice of Wyoming’s Beartooth Plateau lies a long-buried forest.
Scientists recently discovered dozens of 5,900-year-old whitebark pines beneath a melting ice patch in the Rocky Mountains. This prehistoric forest thrived hundreds of feet above the modern timberline in the mid-Holocene period until volcanic activity triggered cooler temperatures, which ultimately encased the trees in an ice patch for thousands of years.
Now, as global temperatures rise, the ice patch has melted — and subsequently provided researchers with a new opportunity to study our planet’s rich geological and climate history.
A Melting Ice Patch Reveals A Prehistoric Forest In Wyoming
Joe McConnell/Desert Research InstituteThe large ice patch on Beartooth Plateau in northwestern Wyoming.
In 2007, researcher Craig Lee discovered a piece of a 10,300-year-old atlatl in an ice patch on Beartooth Plateau in Wyoming, sparking widespread interest in the region among scientists.
Recently, a group of researchers from Montana State University and the United States Geological Survey traveled to Beartooth Plateau to see what else was hiding beneath the ice. There, they discovered more than 30 dead whitebark pine trees, a resilient species that can live up to 1,000 years. The melting ice patch had revealed them for the first time in millennia.
While the trees were lying flat, they were in remarkably good condition, leading the researchers to determine they had been entombed in ice quickly more than 5,000 years ago.
According to their study, now published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists used radiocarbon dating techniques and information from the trees’ rings to determine that they lived between 5,950 and 5,440 years ago.
“The plateau seems to have been the perfect place to allow for ice patches to establish and persist for thousands of years, recording important information on past climate, human activity and environmental change,” study lead author Greg Pederson, a paleoclimatologist for the U.S. Geological Survey, stated in a press release from Montana State University.
But what type of environmental conditions led to the formation of the ice patch and its eventual takeover of the forest? Researchers say the climate in Wyoming thousands of years ago would have been unrecognizable today.
What The Trees Can Tell Us About The History Of The Rocky Mountain Ecosystem
Darryl Kenyon/FlickrBeartooth Plateau is located not far from Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming.
The pine trees found beneath the ice patch were located 600 feet above the area’s modern timberline, or the elevation where trees stop growing due to harsh conditions. This suggests that the climate in the region was warmer 6,000 years ago than it is today.
“Growing season temperatures are the primary control on tree line elevation and latitude,” Pederson further explained in the press release. “However, at individual tree line locations, other factors such as moisture, wind, snowpack and human disturbance may play an important role in dictating forest structure and elevational limits.”
While the Beartooth Plateau area was initially warmer when these trees were alive and growing, volcanic eruptions in the Northern Hemisphere at the time began spewing ash into the air and blocking sunlight, rapidly cooling the climate. The ice patch soon grew and covered the trees for thousands of years.
Now, increasing global temperatures have once again exposed these trees, allowing researchers to uncover their secrets for the first time.
“This is pretty dramatic evidence of ecosystem change due to temperature warming,” David McWethy, an associate professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at Montana State University, stated in the press release. “It’s an amazing story of how dynamic these systems are.”
After reading about the prehistoric trees found beneath an ice patch in Wyoming, go inside the story of the Methuselah tree, the world’s oldest known tree. Then, read about Julia “Butterfly” Hill, the environmental activist who lived in a tree for two years.
