University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee assistant professor Erik Gulbransen is on the leading edge of Earth sciences thanks to his discovery of an ancient fossilized forest near the south pole.
Prof. Gulbransen has been to Antarctica twice over the past year in order to locate and document fossils of ancient trees that would have existed near the time of Earth's largest mass extinction, around 260 million years ago.
The fossils show evidence of being from three distinct ecosystems. But what's really exciting to Gulbransen is they existed near a time when more than 90 percent of all organisms vanished from the Earth because of super-high atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Now, research into the fossils are teaching geologists and climate scientists more about what an Earth with super high concentrations of greenhouse gasses might be like.
Related Content
- Geologist's ancient fossil discovery sheds light on a very different period of Earth's history
- Modern fossil discovery rewrites human history
- Fossil remains of ancient horse unearthed in Utah family's backyard
- Discovery of ancient ramp may solve Egyptian pyramids mystery
- Dinosaur tracks found in Scotland shed light on mid-Jurassic period
- New 26,000-pound dinosaur discovery was Earth's largest land animal
- Geologist: The weird thing about the Hawaii eruption
- Geologist: It's not just lava making the volcano blow
- The best of ancient Egypt
- Trump physical unlikely to shed light on mental fitness
.jpg)
