Geologists Have Discovered 280-Million-Year-Old Fossilized Forest In Antartica

Erik Gulbranson and John Isbell from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee trekked across the Transantarctic Mountains during the continent's summer, between November and January. They found the ancient ​specimens among the rocks where a leafy forest once grew. The team have now returned to the frozen slopes once more to find out how the forest could have flourished there. The polar forest grew at a latitude where plants can't grow today and scientists are now trying to understand why they went extinct (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee/Screengrab)