The 32,000 year-old stash of a Siberian arctic ground
squirrel gave two Russian Scientists the opportunity to bring an ice age
variety of Silene stenophylla, a
narrow-leafed campion, back to life. The plant had shared the Siberian plains
with mammoths, wooly rhinoceroses, and giant bison. Silene serves
as an example of the rich biological material encased in permafrost, an ice age
legacy totaling almost one fifth of the land area on our planet.
The image I created for a November 2012 article in The North Forty News (http://www.northfortynews.com/resurrection-from-permafrost-and-other-ice-age-legacies/)
shows what the resurrected plant looks like. The mammoth in the background
represents the paleoartist’s longing to actually see an entire ice age
landscape recreated—to be able to see into the past and witness firsthand some
portion of the twisted road that led to our here and now.
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