Ancient forests off Alabama coast

[nolatom]

There was an article in today’s New Orleans Sunday paper on ancient cypress forest remains in the Gulf, at 60-foot depth off coastal Alabama. Which means about five miles out. Lots for scientists to investigate about forests of about 50 thousand years ago, when ocean levels were lower.
Here’s an earlier NYT article on same subject. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/03/31/science/underwater-forest-shipworms.amp.html
This is the general area where I go for day diving. An “inshore” dive as locals call it, might be in or near ancient forests, who knows.
Yesterday I went on an “offshore” dive about ten miles out, where it’s 90 feet or so. We looked at some bridge rubble dumped there when they built Interstate 10 a few decades ago.
Maybe I should book an inshore dive next time, who knows what we’ll find. I wouldn’t be surprised if scuba locals found it first, then scientists checked it out.

 

[Rob9876]

Yes, it was discovered [EDIT: on sonar by a fisherman, who contacted] an Alabama dive shop owner, who then showed it to an environmental journalist. Here's a link to the documentary on it:
It looks like a neat site. They've been trying to raise $30,000 needed to get some kind of federal protection (I forget the name, something like a historic site registry) but have not yet as I understand it. It's been a number of years now since it was discovered. The companies interested in harvesting the ancient wood already know where it is, so in my opinion it seems like they could do better to raise money by opening it up to scuba divers who care about protecting the environment -- perhaps providing some guided dives, etc. However, as I understand it they are not yet going in that direction.

 

[Dan]

The sea level then (40-60 thousands years ago) was about 60 ft lower that it is today. I wonder when did the stalactites in The Great Blue Hole in Belize, at 130 ft below the sea level, go underwater?

Answer from Google:
about 153,000 years ago

“The Blue Hole was formed at the end of the last Ice Age when rising seawaters flooded a series of enormous caverns. Geologists have determined that the caves first formed about 153,000 years ago and were completely submerged approximately 15,000 years ago.”

I understand that those ice age periods happen in cyclical. However, it’s interesting to see from a simple linear regression of 2 data points (60 ft depth, 50,000 yrs ago and 130 ft depth, 150,000 yrs ago), that the sea level rises a foot in every 1250 yrs, i.e., was the sea level 2 feet lower than today, when Jesus was born?

 

[Diverlady13]

The sea level then (40-60 thousands years ago) was about 60 ft lower that it is today. I wonder when did the stalactites in The Great Blue Hole in Belize, at 130 ft below the sea level, go underwater?

According to Google, so hopefully it's somewhat accurate:

“The Blue Hole was formed at the end of the last Ice Age when rising seawaters flooded a series of enormous caverns. Geologists have determined that the caves first formed about 153,000 years ago and were completely submerged approximately 15,000 years ago.”

 

[Dan]

According to Google, so hopefully it's somewhat accurate:

“The Blue Hole was formed at the end of the last Ice Age when rising seawaters flooded a series of enormous caverns. Geologists have determined that the caves first formed about 153,000 years ago and were completely submerged approximately 15,000 years ago.”

I should have asked uncle Google before I posted the question. Thanks for your quick reply.

 

[nolatom]

Wow Rob, thanks, that was fascinating and much more than I expected, about something I’d never heard in about two decades of occasional boat dives out of Orange Beach and Pensacola.
Ivan tore up that area in ‘04, and Katrina drowned us Orleanians the next year so I didn’t get back out there for a while. But even so I’m surprised that the research wasn’t a big topic in the “redneck riviera” boating of dive crowd.
I wonder if future storms might uncover more such sites, whether trees or some. different phenomena.
Not that I’d wish for more hurricanes though. One house flood and refugee experience is enough.

 

[lowflyer]

They had better get this declared a National Protective Area, or whatever the designation is, quickly because the salvage people shouldn't have much trouble getting a location and start their work carting off the wood.

 

[Rob9876]

They had better get this declared a National Protective Area, or whatever the designation is, quickly because the salvage people shouldn't have much trouble getting a location and start their work carting off the wood.

I looked again and they are trying to get it declared a National Marine Sanctuary. However, it seems to be progressing at the speed of government -- the original article was published in 2012: Ancient forest lies 10 miles off the Alabama coast (video, gallery)

 

[tarponchik]

They've been trying to raise $30,000 needed to get some kind of federal protection.

Why do they need to raise money to get federal protection?

 

[Rob9876]

Why do they need to raise money to get federal protection?

I don't know all of the details. I can't find anything specifically talking about filing fees -- though I know many governmental submissions require those. Perhaps that is the estimated costs to jump through all of the hoops in the process: Sanctuary Nomination Process