When Greenland was Green 

A correspondent sent me THIS LINK to a very interesting article about finding the world's oldest DNA and the even more interesting fact that 2 million years ago Greenland was indeed green!

The DNA was recovered from sediment taken from northernmost point of Greenland. This is environmental DNA - stuff shed into the environment by living creatures and plants. The DNA fragments were compared with the "DNA Library" and found to have come from things not found in Northern Greenland today. (I don't think there is much to be found there nowadays!)

The most eye catching find was mastodon DNA. The thought of "elephants" at the North Pole is rather mind-blowing!

But everything else is equally surprising. The picture which emerges is of an environment 10 to 17 degrees Celcius warmer than todays Greenland.

As amazing as the lush ecosystem of 2 million years ago is the extraction of DNA from sediment. I wonder what other amazements will come from this.

An artist's reconstruction of what the Kap København Formation in northern Greenland might have looked like 2 million years ago. Beth Zaiken