The Sunken Forests of New Hampshire are two large areas of tree stumps submerged off New Hampshire's coast. They sank below sea level after the ending of the

Wisconsin Glaciation The Wisconsin Glacial Episode, also called the Wisconsin glaciation, was the most recent glacial period of the North American ice sheet complex. This advance included the Cordilleran Ice Sheet, which nucleated in the northern North American Cor ...

and subsequent rise in temperature;

isostatic rebound Post-glacial rebound (also called isostatic rebound or crustal rebound) is the rise of land masses after the removal of the huge weight of ice sheets during the last glacial period, which had caused isostatic depression. Post-glacial rebound a ...

has not kept pace with the rise in sea level, and former coastal forests were overtaken by the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

. The trees could not thrive, even when they were in the early stages of sinking, because they cannot live in salt water for very long. All that is left of the forests are stumps.

Forests

Odiorne Point

Near

Odiorne Point State Park Odiorne Point State Park is a public recreation area located on the Atlantic seacoast in the town of Rye near Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Among the park's features are the Seacoast Science Center and the remains of the World War II Fort Dearborn ...

Rye Rye (''Secale cereale'') is a grass grown extensively as a grain, a cover crop and a forage crop. It is a member of the wheat tribe (Triticeae) and is closely related to both wheat (''Triticum'') and barley (genus ''Hordeum''). Rye grain is u ...

, this sunken forest is referred to as the "Drowned Forest". The roots of different coniferous trees (including white pine and hemlock) are visible at most low tides. Core samples taken from the roots indicate that the trees are about 3,500 - 4,000 years old. Scuba divers commonly explore the Drowned Forest to learn about these ancient remains.

Jenness Beach

The Jenness Beach forest, much larger than Odiorne Point, is rarely sighted above sea level. Sightings have occurred in 1940, 1958, 1962, 1978, 2007, and 2010. The trees, eight to ten feet in circumference, have been

carbon dated Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon. The method was dev ...

from 3,400 to 3,800 years old. Currently, only 56 stumps remain, but due to the circumference of the trees, it was likely to have been a much vaster forest. The seafloor on which it sits was probably submerged after the

Wisconsin glaciation The Wisconsin Glacial Episode, also called the Wisconsin glaciation, was the most recent glacial period of the North American ice sheet complex. This advance included the Cordilleran Ice Sheet, which nucleated in the northern North American Cor ...

. Some estimates say that the coastline of

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

used to extend east of its current position; a Native American of the era could have walked from

Nantucket Nantucket () is an island about south from Cape Cod. Together with the small islands of Tuckernuck and Muskeget, it constitutes the Town and County of Nantucket, a combined county/town government that is part of the U.S. state of Massachuse ...

to southern

Cape Cod Cape Cod is a peninsula extending into the Atlantic Ocean from the southeastern corner of mainland Massachusetts, in the northeastern United States. Its historic, maritime character and ample beaches attract heavy tourism during the summer mont ...

without touching the Atlantic Ocean. Another estimate states that New Hampshire's shore could have been a few miles inland. The former estimate is more likely. Fishermen have hauled up

mastodon A mastodon ( 'breast' + 'tooth') is any proboscidean belonging to the extinct genus ''Mammut'' (family Mammutidae). Mastodons inhabited North and Central America during the late Miocene or late Pliocene up to their extinction at the end of th ...

and

mammoth A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus ''Mammuthus'', one of the many genera that make up the order of trunked mammals called proboscideans. The various species of mammoth were commonly equipped with long, curved tusks and, ...

teeth miles offshore, suggesting that the forest extended quite far from its western shoreline boundary. The last few yards of the

transatlantic telegraph cable Transatlantic telegraph cables were undersea cables running under the Atlantic Ocean for telegraph communications. Telegraphy is now an obsolete form of communication, and the cables have long since been decommissioned, but telephone and data a ...

laid in 1874 may have gone through the sunken forest.

Bibliography

*Pielou, E.C. 1992. ''After the Ice Age: The Return of Life to Glaciated North America''

Notes

External links