World’s Oldest Viable Seeds

Until recently, the oldest regenerated ancient plans were date palms grown from seeds found at the famous Masada fortress. That record was not only eclipsed, it was shattered when Russian scientists managed to grow plants from seeds buried by squirrels more than 30,000 years ago.

The seeds were those of a fruit-bearing plant known as Silene stenophylla. The seeds were found in a permafrost layer in Siberia and carefully carbon dated. They were found to be 31,800 years old plus or minus 300 years.

Silene stenophylla never became extinct and is still found on the Siberian tundra, giving scientists a chance to study differences and similarities between the modern plants and their ancient ancestors. It also suggests that other plant materials stored in permafrost could also be brought back, including some extinct species.

Technically, the plants were grown not from the actual seeds themselves, but from the tissues in the fruit to which the seeds were attached. Nevertheless, it is a remarkable achievement for the team led by cryologists Svetlana Yashina and David Gilichinsky of the Russian Academy of Sciences. It is likely that once these plants have bloomed, viable seeds can be recovered.

This remarkable achievement began with the discovery of about 70 squirrel hibernation burrows found along the banks of the lower Kolyma River in northeastern Siberia. These burrows were found to contain hundreds of thousands of seed samples from a number of different plants. They were 65 to 130 feet (20 to 40 meters) below the present day surface of the river bank. These layers also contained bones of such Late Pleistocene-age animals as wooly rhinoceros, bison, deer, horse, and mammoth. Apparently, the burrows were quickly covered with ice and remained frozen continuously until they were discovered. Could these frozen burrows yield clues to the event that produced Siberia’s flash-frozen mammoths?

There’s more information about these ancient plants here:

Lake Baikal: The World’s Oldest Lake

One-fifth of the world’s fresh water is located in Lake Baikal in southeastern Siberia. It is not only the world’s oldest lake, but at more than 5,000 feet (1637 m) deep, it is also the deepest. Lake Baikal is estimated to have formed about 20 to 25 million years ago. It also appears that it’s on its way to becoming an ocean as a cleft in the tectonic plate beneath it splits Asia apart.

Lake Baikal is located in one of the most beautiful areas in the region. The mountains surrounding it provide food and shelter for wild animals. There are several small, self-reliant villages nearby which often play host to tourists and researchers.

This giant lake is nearly 400 miles (640 km) long and 49 miles (79k) wide. It is so large that it creates its own micro-climate. And while more than 300 rivers and streams flow into the lake, only one, the Angara River, flows out.

The giant lake’s oxygen-rich waters and surrounding forest support about 1,200 different animal species, both land-based and aquatic, and over 600 types of plants. About 75 percent are found only in this environment. For example, the world’s only freshwater seals live in Lake Baikal and their favorite food is a pink, scaleless, partly transparent fish that bears live young.

Lake Baikal’s seals may have migrated southward from the Arctic and adapted to their new home by producing more blood, making it possible for them to swim underwater for more than an hour. They are also deep divers, able to reach depths of more than 800 feet (300 meters) below the surface.

Some of the lake’s fish survive more than a mile beneath the surface where water pressures are dramatically high. Like their deep sea counterparts, they literally explode when brought to the surface.

If you’re interested in learning more about the world’s oldest lake, go here