A view of the Transantarctic Mountain Range in summer. Credit: Hannes Grobe/Wikipedia/Creative Commons

When we look at the Antarctic we think of it as one giant bed of ice with the odd penguin strutting its stuff.

But in the 1980s beneath all that ice and snow, scientists discovered the remains of a large giant forest located at the base of the Transantarctic mountain range. It’s estimated the forest covered an area of 1,300 kilometers.

Of course, where there is a forest there was also animal life, besides penguins. They have found vast quantities of dinosaur bones, including a lizard that grew to 23 feet in length. Of course predictably they say that they are million of years old, but meanwhile the wood from these ancient forests hasn’t fully petrified, it can still burn and float.

The Transantarctic Mountain range differs from other mountains in that its made up largely of sedimentary rock formed by layers of dirt and sand laid down by water.

It is not much different in the northern Arctic. A similar forest was found on Axel Heiberg Island located just 600 kilometers from the North Pole. They even found leaves, still intact.

The trees snapped off at the trunk were upwards of 35-feet long.

The size suggests trees were between 500 to 1000 years old. The fact they were knocked over caused scientists to speculate the area was hit by a massive flood.

The rings indicated that there was still a three-month winter cycle where there was basically no sun and no growth, but during the warm summer the trees grew rapidly.

Again like the antarctic, the trees were not petrified, researchers described them as mummified.

There were redwoods, spruce and hickory trees. What is even more interesting is that this was once a tropical area as they found the remains of turtles and alligators.

So what are we to conclude:

1. The earth God created was much different from what we see today. Not only was man contaminated by man’s fall into sin, but so was creation (Romans 8:22).
2. The flood covered the whole earth as the Bible said it did including both Arctic and Antarctic (Genesis 7:20).
3. The earth experienced global warming and global cooling and we can’t blame SUVs. There are natural processes at work.

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