Underwater Forest Uncovered By Hurricane Katrina Found- Buried For 50,000 Years, Scientists Only Have 2 Years To Study

An underwater forest has was found off the coast of Alabama-but scientists only have two years to study it. After that, the 50,000 year old underwater forest will be destroyed by sea creatures and fish.

The cypress underwater forest was discovered by scuba divers who kept it a secret. The primeval underwater forest was exposed by Hurricane Katrina.

Before being uncovered by Katrina, the primeval cypress forest was in an oxygen-free environment for more than 50,000 years.

The underwater forest has trees in it that still smell like fresh Cypress sap when cut-although they're 50,000 years old, says Ben Raines, one of the first explorers of the forest.  Raines is also the executive director of the nonprofit Weeks Bay Foundation.

The Bald Cypress forest spans several acres and sits about 60 feet below the surface of the ocean. It is about .5 square miles and lies a few miles from the coast of Mobile, Alabama in the Gulf of Mexico.

"Swimming around amidst these stumps and logs, you just feel like you're in this fairy world," Raines said.

Unfortunately, scientists just have a few years to explore and catalog the underwater forest. That's because wood-burrowing marine mammals now have access to the forest and will eat the ancient wood.

"The longer this wood sits on the bottom of the ocean, the more marine organisms burrow into the wood, which can create hurdles when we are trying to get radiocarbon dates," Harley said. "It can really make the sample undatable, unusable."

The forest was discovered after a local fisherman found a site full of wildlife about a year after Katrina. He suspected something was hidden below, and told a friend of Raines who happened to own a dive shop.

The diver went down to check it out....and found a forest of  ancient trees submerged in the water's depths. However, for fear others would take artifacts, the dive shop owner kept the location a closely-guarded secret.

Finally, in 2012, the owner told Raines the location of the underwater forest, swearing him to secrecy. Raines explored the swamp and found a primeval Cypress underwater forest in unparalleled, pristine condition. The forest, since becoming excavated, had become a reef that attracted fish, anemones, crustaceans, and other animals.

Raines swam up and down the forest, seeing that some trees were massive, and many logs had fallen over before they were covered with sediment then excavated after Katrina.

Other scientists examined the area, made a sonar map of the underwater forest, and analyzed samples. The trees were dated to be about 52,000 years old; their rings may eventually reveal climactic information about the Gulf of Mexico during the Wisconsin Glacial Period, which featured much lower sea levels.

Because Bald Cypress trees can live for up to a thousand years, may also hold climate history locked within their rings, which would be potentially significant for scientists who study climate change.

"These stumps are so big, they're upwards of two meters in diameter - the size of trucks," Harley told OurAmazingPlanet. "They probably contain thousands of growth rings."

Regardless, though, the underwater forest is a sight to behold-even as it's getting slowly destroyed.