Glaciers and snow are white, bare or thinly vegetated ground is brown, and ice-covered water appears light blue. The field site where paleontologists found Tiktaalik roseae is near the southern tip of the island. "The modernity of this particular forest was surprising in and of itself, but also that it had elements to it that we would not see today in North America," West said. On Ellesmere Island in the Arctic one fossil forest consists of a nearly hundred large stumps scattered on an exposed coal bed. The Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus sensor on the Landsat 7 satellite took this picture of Ellesmere Island on June 16, 2000. They also found evidence of trees now only found in parts of eastern Asia like dawn redwood, Chinese swamp cypress and ginkgo. He said these ancient plants are related to modern trees like birch, alder, elm, sycamore and horse chestnut. "There were these rich forests living well above the Arctic Circle and that really drew me," said Christopher West, a paleobotanist and PhD graduate. Researchers at the University of Saskatchewan looked at more than 5,000 plant fossils dating back to the Eocene epoch - around 56 million years ago - from Ellesmere and Axel Heiberg islands in Nunavut. While previous research has looked at mammal fossils from the area, this is the only comprehensive analysis of fossilized plants from the Canadian Arctic, the study says. On Ellesmere Island in the Arctic one fossil forest consists of a nearly hundred large stumps scattered on an exposed coal bed. The High Arctic is known for frigid temperatures and treeless tundra but it was once home to lush forests carpeted with ferns, along with alligators, snakes, turtles, lemurs and birds, according to a new study.
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