Ancient Fossilized Forest Found

I found this story to be absolutely amazing when I first heard about it several months ago, and I still enjoy imagining what it would be like to take the same tour as these scientists who went hundreds of meters below the surface to walk through the world’s oldest rainforest. What I found most incredible was that scientists “estimate that within a period of months the forest was buried, preserving it “forever.” Just amazing!

SOURCE

Scientists exploring a mine have uncovered a natural Sistine chapel showing not religious paintings, but incredibly well preserved images of sprawling tree trunks and fallen leaves that once breathed life into an ancient rainforest.

The largest ever found, the fossil forest covers an area of about 4 square miles.

The fossil forest extends along the ceiling of two adjacent mines, the Riola mine and the Vermillion Grove mine, which are located in Vermilion County, just south of Danville, Ill.

The scientists think a major earthquake about 300 million years ago caused the region to drop below sea level where it was buried in mud. They estimate that within a period of months the forest was buried, preserving it “forever.”

Originally posted by apaulo
I found this story to be absolutely amazing when I first heard about it several months ago, and I still enjoy imagining what it would be like to take the same tour as these scientists who went hundreds of meters below the surface to walk through the world’s oldest rainforest. What I found most incredible was that scientists “estimate that within a period of months the forest was buried, preserving it “forever.” Just amazing!

SOURCE

Scientists exploring a mine have uncovered a natural Sistine chapel showing not religious paintings, but incredibly well preserved images of sprawling tree trunks and fallen leaves that once breathed life into an ancient rainforest.

The largest ever found, the fossil forest covers an area of about 4 square miles.

The fossil forest extends along the ceiling of two adjacent mines, the Riola mine and the Vermillion Grove mine, which are located in Vermilion County, just south of Danville, Ill.

The scientists think a major earthquake about 300 million years ago caused the region to drop below sea level where it was buried in mud. They estimate that within a period of months the forest was buried, preserving it “forever.”

was it pompeii

I ditto it being amazing! People should click on that link and see the photo. I would love to see more photos of the fossils. If it's a fossilized forest, there's got to be some insects and critters found within that 4 mile area.

This would make a fascinating documentary about the relationship to the ice ages and ancient connections to the sea. I found a wiki article on this same area and it mentions saline spring waters.

en.wikipedia.org...


This may have been a huge sink hole and a mud slide. Possibly even related to a pole shift? I wonder what the mud and material would say about the minerials and possibility that the salt also helped in preservation. It would be great if there's a video to go with this also. Since this is also an older aticle, maybe it's already been posted here with more information and a video?

more related info:

www.commercial-news.com...

www.synthstuff.com...

www.s8int.com...

[edit on 3-2-2009 by aleon1018]

Amazing find!

It has always kind of saddened me by the fact that we mine all of this coal by the tons every minute when there could be so much we can discover. Think of all the fossils of thousands of extinct species we could have uncovered!

The article was from 2007--- can you find out any updated pictures of this find? Thanks!

300million years ago...

it could have easily been covered by mud during the flood of noah and preserved

just food for thought

Thanks for the post I am always interested in this subject as my yard is entirely covered in petrified wood!

every where I dig I have to excavate the hundreds of pounds of the stuff

Originally posted by xynephadyn
The article was from 2007--- can you find out any updated pictures of this find? Thanks!

www.isgs.uiuc.edu...

A 300 Million Year Old Pennsylvanian Age Mire Forest
(Links to fossil pictures at bottom on page)

reply to post by Anonymous ATS


I always find the story of noah amusing. The guy lived within walking distance of every species on earth and piled all of them on a boat? But lets not distract scientific discussion with fairy tales.

reply to post by Phlegmi


No, the animals came to him.
Have you read Genesis?

great post.

thanks for posting this. S&F

Nice article ! Loved the pics very nice detail..got some ideas for a couple new paintings Simply amazing what we can find if we just slow down and look.

reply to post by apaulo
in the pic it looks more like imprints on rocks; I was thinking petrified forest...

reply to post by Clearskies


FFS - how did the animals [ flightless and none swimmers ] GET to him ???

Originally posted by Clearskies
reply to post by Phlegmi

 

No, the animals came to him.

So he's Dr. Doolittle of ancient times?

What did he use? Telepathy?

So how do you think he piled up all the animals on the face of the earth on a wooden ship without them eating each other or crapping and drowning in their own faeces all over the ship?

I find the Noah nonsense pretty amusing as well. I can understand the ignorant stupid dumb ancient people who can't count more than 20 to believe this utter nonsense, but I am surprised some people today still believe in this crap!

On topic:
By the way this is a great discovery, too bad there aren't too many pictures.

But I had a laugh about the NOah BS in this thread anyway.

[edit on 4-2-2009 by SkepticalSpectacle]

Actually he didn't collect every animal on earth. Just "every clean animal".

In the early Biblical context, clean animals were a very small subset of the animal kingdom.

[edit on 4-2-2009 by zupreme]

reply to post by SkepticalSpectacle


Poking fun at someone's religeous beliefs is very immature. *Civility and Decorum"? Ok, so you don't share his belief, it's obvious, but why belittle it?

Your time would be better spent working on your new skateboard tricks.

Originally posted by SkepticalSpectacle

Originally posted by Clearskies
reply to post by Phlegmi

 

No, the animals came to him.

So he's Dr. Doolittle of ancient times?

What did he use? Telepathy?

So how do you think he piled up all the animals on the face of the earth on a wooden ship without them eating each other or crapping and drowning in their own faeces all over the ship?

I find the Noah nonsense pretty amusing as well. I can understand the ignorant stupid dumb ancient people who can't count more than 20 to believe this utter nonsense, but I am surprised some people today still believe in this crap!

On topic:
By the way this is a great discovery, too bad there aren't too many pictures.

But I had a laugh about the NOah BS in this thread anyway.

[edit on 4-2-2009 by SkepticalSpectacle]

Please do this on the Noah thread not here. Maybe read the big green letters above every thread here too.

As for the subject matter this would be awesome to go through does anyone know if you can just get a tour through this or is it still reserved for scientists?

Originally posted by ignorant_ape
reply to post by Clearskies

 

FFS - how did the animals [ flightless and none swimmers ] GET to him ???

Actually I believe that the continents weren't broken up before the Flood.

Gen 7:11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.

The fault lines may have been produced from this upheaval, IMO.
We're not told how old Noah was when he started building the ark. It could've taken a hundred years, I don't know.
Of the descendants of Noah's son Shem;

Gen 10:25 And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one [was] Peleg; for in his days was the earth divided; and his brother's name [was] Joktan.

Peleg's name means 'division'.
Noah was his great, great, great grandfather.

Gen 10:32 These [are] the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood.

I have also seen VERY old accurate maps from India that could account for Peleg's name meaning, 'Mapped'.
Nothing concrete.
Icr.org

For this reason, I am convinced that Genesis 10:25 should not be understood to imply that "In the days of Peleg the Atlantic Ocean opened up." This would have caused devastation comparable to Noah's Flood, and the Bible has no mention of it. If the continents separated, they did so during Noah's Flood.

The traditional interpretation relates Peleg's day to the division of language/family groups at the Tower of Babel. Comparing the lineage of Shem, which includes Peleg, to the lineage of Ham, which includes Nimrod, leader of the rebellion at Babel, we find it likely that Peleg was born soon after the dispersion (assuming the genealogies are complete). Thus it would have been reasonable for his father Eber to name a son in commemoration of this miraculous event.

One "separator" did occur sometime after the dispersion. The Ice Age, which followed the Flood, would have caused sea level to be an estimated 600 feet lower than today, since such a great volume of water was trapped as ice on the continents. Such a lowering of today's seas would reconnect the continents once again. The connected continents would have aided in both animal and human migration following both the Flood and the dispersion, as commanded by God (Genesis 8:17; 11:4,8,9). Then the ending of the Ice Age and the melting of the ice sheets would cause sea level to rise, covering the land bridges and "dividing" the continents after migration had occurred.