Melting ice reveals ancient forest on Rocky Mountains

Melting ice has revealed an ancient pine forest in the Rocky Mountains in the United States.

The trees, which date back almost 6000 years, were found 600 feet (183 metres) above the current tree line on the Beartooth mountains in Wyoming.

Scientists found over 30 trees during a study of the area.

To understand how old the trees were and what happened to them, a team from Montana State University studied the trees' rings and used carbon dating to work out their age.

They also studied ice cores taken from the area.

How were the trees revealed?

Volcanic activity in Iceland 5,100 years ago caused temperatures to plunge globally.

The pine trees died and the fallen trees were encased in ice.

Researchers believe that the trees could have been preserved by coverage from avalanches.

But recent rising temperatures due to climate change have led to the ice melting and the trees to be revealed.

A study in 2021 found that due to climate change ice is melting much more rapidly across the world than it has in previous years.

What does this show?

They found the trees lived 5950 to 5440 years ago which was around the time the climate started to cool.

This is why trees grow much lower down the mountain now.

The higher parts of the mountain's landscape became covered in ice.

Researchers believe with continued warming this could lead to the tree line once again moving upwards on the mountain as ice continues to melt.

Temperatures now equal or are above the estimated warm-season temperatures of the time when the ancient ice-patch forest was growing.

While the trees present scientists with a valuable time capsule of that period, the scientists also say it shows how fragile alpine ecosystems are to climate change.