[HN Gopher] Scientists discover an ancient forest inside a giant...
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Scientists discover an ancient forest inside a giant sinkhole in
China
Author : pseudolus
Score : 98 points
Date : 2022-05-21 00:22 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.npr.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.npr.org)
| [deleted]
| jdlyga wrote:
| Hey, it's the plot of Etrian Odyssey! A sinkhole with a forest
| inside was discovered, and the nearby town became mobbed with
| adventurers. It turns out there were many layers of forests and
| other biomes the further down you went into the sinkhole.
| dtx1 wrote:
| How come this was just discovered now? Given satelite coverage
| and the orweillian chinese government i would have expected that
| every square milimeter in china has been mapped, zoned and
| cataloged. Are there still parts of the world/china that are
| essentially undiscoveres country?
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| It's in a sinkhole, from a satellite image it would at most
| look like a valley of some sort.
|
| The world is massive, more so if you add things that are
| underground or under water.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| How comes nobody explored this till now? Even sinkholes in
| Yucatan that are known death traps have been relentlessly
| explored, including with autonomous submarines.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| There are a lot of caves, most of them with nothing
| noteworthy inside. Exploring a known deathtrap is more
| likely than some random hole in a rural mountain.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| Even leaving satellite images out, I don't understand either
| how this only got discovered now. Is China so sparsely
| populated in some areas? I understand that not every place is
| like Europe where every square centimeter has been utilized by
| humans in some capacity throughout history, but even in
| comparatively empty US, I cannot imagine something huge like
| this only getting discovered now.
|
| Mexico has lots of sinkholes and there have been massive
| efforts to fully explore those, including autonomous submarines
| for mapping. Yet here is an enormous sinkhole in a country of 1
| billion+ people and it gets "discovered"
| amelius wrote:
| Over what amount of time did the hole appear?
| srvmshr wrote:
| Given that I watched King Kong movies just the past weekend, the
| title makes for amusing imaginations.
|
| But humor aside, the upward looking photograph from the other
| comment is seriously neat (& has a Hollywood
| dino/disaster/monster movie vibe to it). Hope the scientists find
| some new insect or flora species as such ecosystems would have
| remained undisturbed from human activities.
| divbzero wrote:
| I like that they have not disclosed the exact location. I am
| always concerned that publicity can lead to visitors and damage
| to natural preserves like this one.
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| I wonder how long that'll remain the case. This reminds me of
| the Utah monolith and the Sarlacc Pit in British Columbia -
| both of which were announced and shown in photo and videos but
| with the exact location undisclosed. And in both cases curious
| folks had IDed the exact locations via open source means and
| there were placemarks on Google Maps within a few days. Maybe
| it'll be different in China?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_monolith
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells_Gray_Park_Cave_discovery
| ars wrote:
| That does happen, but this is trees in a big hole - not that
| easy to damage just by visiting.
| luhn wrote:
| "Trees in a big hole" is a wildly reductive take. The article
| already mentions "dense brush on the forest floor [standing]
| shoulder-high," which would easily be damaged by a flock of
| tourists. Plus you almost certainly have mosses, lichen, and
| fungi, likely a variety of insects, and even possibly some
| small vertebrates.
|
| Don't miss the forest for the trees.
| galacticaactual wrote:
| Un'Goro Crater confirmed.
| julienchastang wrote:
| The article does not mention any details about this "ancient
| forest". In what way is it unique or spectacular? Are there
| species of trees that are found nowhere else? Enquiring minds
| would like to know :-)
| spinaltap wrote:
| I know the stock photo isn't the one, but just look at the roads
| that the Chinese built (on the left part of the stock photo)
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Isn't that standard when dealing with high elevation? Going
| straight up is much harder than gradually going up a longer
| distance.
| nzach wrote:
| Very neat. This reminds me a video I watched last week[0]. The
| video goes about "geological formations" that behaves like
| islands(primarily the effects it casts over the fauna) but aren't
| classified as such.
|
| As far as I understand this sinkhole could be also classified as
| an "island".
|
| [0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OqUjXEqUtc
| robonerd wrote:
| This is the premise of Arthur Conan Doyle's _The Lost World_.
| Dinosaurs and other ancient beasts kept isolated in the crater
| of an ancient volcano, the slopes of which are almost
| impossible to get over.
| kdecomnect wrote:
| That's a cool concept. Real world we have ngorogoro crater
| which elephants, who are surprisingly good climbers, make the
| journey in and out
| donatj wrote:
| clairity wrote:
| these things are such a staple of chinese wuxia/xianxia dramas.
| the hero(es) fall into the beautiful sinkhole full of ancient
| vegetation, get stuck there and meditate a lot, usually an
| ancestor/spirit imparts their wisdom onto them, and then they
| emerge wiser and more powerful. it's fun to imagine how those
| myths evolved through the various philosophy-religions like
| buddhism/taoism/confucionism.
| ducttapecrown wrote:
| For anybody looking for such a story, I'd recommend Memories of
| the Fall. This one is written by a westerner, so I'd love more
| suggestions of good wuxia/xianxia written by Chinese authors
| (please link to a translation...).
| rkk3 wrote:
| Probably because of 'Romance of the Condor Heroes', the series
| defined the Wuxia genre & the sinkhole is a major plot point.
| In the west similarly a lot tropes of get lifted from LOTR
| luisfmh wrote:
| It sucks there are no pictures of the actual sinkhole or forest,
| but this is amazing!
| abc_lisper wrote:
| Yeah, it would be nice to see those prehistoric trees!! May be
| they want to reveal that in a paper
| barefeg wrote:
| I find that in a lot of news publications. Like "scientists
| discover new images of X" and then either no image in the
| article, or just a very small low resolution one. I'm not sure
| why that is. Are these sites trying to increase retention time?
| expicli wrote:
| Made in Abyss anime vibes
| Loughla wrote:
| Real talk, though. That is easily one of the best television
| shows I've ever seen.
|
| I always shyed (shied? Shy-ed?) away from it because of the
| memes around how 'pedo' the manga is, and it's anime which has
| never been my flavor.
|
| But holy crap is that show good. The world building is just
| startlingly thorough. It really scratches the sci-fi/high
| fantasy/exploration itch.
| solarmist wrote:
| Yes, but it's so dark. One of the darkest stories I've ever
| experienced.
|
| I love it, but it's still very hard to watch/read.
| kristjansson wrote:
| It cannot be overstated that _none_ of the accompanying images on
| reports of this actually depict the location in question. AFAICT,
| only the CCTV/CGTN state-media video[1] shows actual location,
| and the images are ... far less dramatic the the stock photos
| other outlets have chosen to run with.
|
| [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3QTq6tQfhY
| karaterobot wrote:
| Ahh, thanks for pointing that out. I was confused about the
| photo, like many people I assume. The video you linked is still
| very impressive, though.
| pigtailgirl wrote:
| - everything i read about the next global pandemic predict it
| will come out of Brazil or China via a well preserved primitive
| fauna - in flora as described by the video -- should the people
| in the video be using some from of PPE? --
| colechristensen wrote:
| >should the people in the video be using some from of PPE?
|
| No.
|
| What creates risk are wet markets selling live wild-caught
| animals in unsanitary conditions. These are breeding grounds
| for diseases to develop in animal populations and especially
| to have lots of opportunities to develop the abilities to
| jump species.
|
| Animals in the wild in China are of no greater risk than
| animals in the wild anywhere else in the world. Confinement,
| sanitation, and density is what creates risk, not national
| borders for animals in the wild.
| iskander wrote:
| That video is really remarkable, I would say even more
| impressive than the stock in the article.
|
| I wish any of the coverage would go deeper into what makes this
| forest "ancient" and whether rare species have found a niche
| there.
| colechristensen wrote:
| I assume they just mean that it hasn't been managed by
| humans.
| meatsock wrote:
| I also wanted to see some original source images. As in times
| past, a random slashdot user [1] comes through in a pinch: [2]
|
| [1]: https://news.slashdot.org/story/22/05/20/1732226/ancient-
| for... [2]:
| https://twitter.com/NineDragons2/status/1524634961525026819
| kristjansson wrote:
| I don't think they did? Xinhua[1] reports a 2020 capture
| date, the stock photoist[2] credited by [3] reports a 2018
| capture date?
|
| [1]:
| http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-10/10/c_139430977.htm
|
| [2]: https://www.alamy.com/beijing-china-17th-may-2018-photo-
| take...
|
| [3]: https://www.livescience.com/new-sinkhole-discovered-
| china
| arc-in-space wrote:
| What do you mean, less dramatic! That's amazing. Except for the
| ill-fitting music.
| [deleted]
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| Chinese sequoia tree, Metasequoia, a more hardy version of the
| Giant Redwoods of California was discovered under similar
| circumstances. The Metasequoia is now planted in landscapes all
| over the world as it can tolerate much colder temperatures.
| adolph wrote:
| Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3QTq6tQfhY
|
| Has neat upwards picture: https://www.livescience.com/new-
| sinkhole-discovered-china
| joemi wrote:
| Note the caption of that picture specifically says it's not a
| picture of the sinkhole that the article is about.
| 8bitsrule wrote:
| Top 'Lost World movies'. [https://www.imdb.com/list/ls066679516/]
|
| The 1925 silent included stop-motion animation and originally
| began with an appearance by Sir Arthur himself!
|
| Edit: found it: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loPZFVju8Nw]
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