Rare fossilized cypress forest found in Hungary

In a Hungarian lignite-mine on a piece of land about 100 meters by 100 meters, miners found 15 standing trunks of fossilized swamp cypress. These trees were the third most usual species in the pannon Basin in the mid-Miocene age. Instead of petrifying - turning to stone - the wood of 16 Taxodium trees was preserved in an open-cast coal mine allowing geologists to study samples as if they were sections cut from a piece of living wood.

„The importance of the findings is that so many trees got preserved in their original position in one place,” Alfréd Dulai, geologist at the Hungarian Natural History Museum said. „But the real rarity about these trees is that ... their original wood got preserved ... they did not turn into stone.” The trees, which stand 4-6 meters tall and 1.5-3 meters in diameter, were found when miners started to remove a deep layer of sand at a mine in the north-eastern village of Bükkábrány to get at deposits of lignite.

The annual rings of these trees are very dense, scientists could count 400 of them in a 80 centimeter trunk. The trees date back to the late Miocene geological period at a time when the Carpathian basin - present day Hungary - was a freshwater lake surrounded by swamps. The trees were found on top of the lignite, capturing one of the last moments of these swamps, Dulai said. (mirror.co.uk, origo.hu)