ALABAMA FOREST

ALABAMA FOREST

Subject: Geography

Context: Among the petitions before United States President Joe Biden from environmentalists is one to save a unique forest off the coast of Alabama.

Concept:

• Entire Alabama forest is underwater — 10 fathoms (60 feet) deep — and made up of the remains of cypress trees that grew in the ice age, 60,000 years ago, when prehistoric humans were just starting to move out of Africa.
• Cypress is a common name for various coniferous trees or shrubs of northern temperate regions that belong to the family Cupressaceae.
• The forest was submerged in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico as sea levels rose, and remained entombed in thick layers of sediment, mud and sand for millennia.
• The sediments prevented oxygen from decomposing the stumps, barks and other remnants of the forest.
• The forest was discovered only after Hurricane Ivan hit the Gulf Coast in 2004 and unleashed giant waves that removed the sediments.
• Divers thereafter saw a perfectly preserved cypress forest that was unlike anything else on earth.