The 60,000-year-old forest hidden in the Gulf of Mexico may be a treasure for medical advancement. 

More than 18 meters deep in the Gulf of Mexico is a hidden forest. It was out of sight of biologists and researchers for almost 60,000 years.

The reason that this hidden forest is immersed is due to how the sea has increased its level in the last six millennia. The trees in the forest remained buried under the sand of the ocean floor until 2004, the year Hurricane Ivan hit the Alabama coast with winds of 225 km / h. At sea, waves of up to 27 meters removed tons of sand from the sea floor and exposed this strange prehistoric landscape.

The forest appears to be a completely unique relic from our planet's past, the only known site where a coastal glacial age forest has been preserved in its place with thousands of trees still rooted in the ground that were growing thousands of years ago.
Most of the forests of that period were razed by ice sheets or flooded by melting glaciers, making it rare to have intact forest like this.

Due to the large amount of ocean sediment and an oxygen-free environment, a good number of cypress trees could be conserved. And although these trees died, the lack of oxygen has allowed the wood to remain in its natural state without becoming fossilized or even rotting. This is why it is considered a treasure trove of information that provides new insights into everything from the region's climate to annual rainfall, insect populations, and the types of plants that inhabited the Gulf Coast before humans reached the new world.

But the most surprising and important thing for biologists is the ecosystem that inhabits this prehistoric hidden forest, and which is considered infinite due to the great variety of new microorganisms that exist there.

Biologists from Northeastern and Utah Universities are cataloging the species they are finding. Among them are woodworms, considered authentic living laboratories and which are crucial for the development of new drugs against bacterial resistance.

In addition, the researchers will analyze the samples collected to find compounds and enzymes that have a potential application in the production of all the products obtained from trees, from paper to new renewable fuels.