So, usually all the conspiracy things on DU get sent to some obscure group

[yellerpup]

9. "...the uncovering of long hidden things"

I was thinking of that when I spotted this article. I hope you don't mind it's not conspiracy related, but shine a light on this!


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/01/science/underground-fossil-forest-in-illinois-offers-clues-on-climate-change.html?ref=todayspaper

An Underground Fossil Forest Offers Clues on Climate Change

By W. BARKSDALE MAYNARD
Published: April 30, 2012

In the clammy depths of a southern Illinois coal mine lies the largest fossil forest ever discovered, at least 50 times as extensive as the previous contender.

Scientists are exploring dripping passages by the light of headlamps, mapping out an ecosystem from 307 million years ago, just before the world’s first great forests were wiped out by global warming. This vast prehistoric landscape may shed new light on climate change today.

Dating from the Pennsylvanian period of the Carboniferous era, the forest lies entombed in a series of eight active mines. They burrow through the rich seams of the Springfield Coal, a nationally important energy resource that underlies much of Illinois and two neighboring states and has been heavily mined for decades.

Pushed downward over the ages by the crushing weight of rock layers higher up, the Springfield forest lies at varying depths, 250 to 800 feet underground. The researchers have only sampled it so far, in the vicinity of Galatia, Illinois, but they think it extends more than 100 miles in one direction; its width has not been ascertained. An earlier discovery by the same team, the Herrin Coal forest farther north in Illinois, is just two miles long.