Scientists discover an ancient forest inside a giant sinkhole in China | Hacker News Reader

Scientists discover an ancient forest inside a giant sinkhole in China

npr.org

140 pointspseudolus54 comments

It cannot be overstated that _none_ of the accompanying images on reports of this actually depict the location in question. AFAICT, only the CCTV/CGTN state-media video[1] shows actual location, and the images are ... far less dramatic the the stock photos other outlets have chosen to run with.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3QTq6tQfhY

Ahh, thanks for pointing that out. I was confused about the photo, like many people I assume. The video you linked is still very impressive, though.

That video is really remarkable, I would say even more impressive than the stock in the article.

I wish any of the coverage would go deeper into what makes this forest "ancient" and whether rare species have found a niche there.

I assume they just mean that it hasn't been managed by humans.

If anyone wants to write a follow-up with enhanced botanical detail, the fine people at the Chinese Academy of Sciences South China Botanical Garden in Guangzhou[0] (neighbouring Guangdong province) and Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden in Menglun[1] (neighbouring Yunnan province) are the preeminent scholars of southern Chinese biology. I am sure they could put you in touch with those who are no doubt actively surveying the site[2] in Guangxi.

[0] http://english.scib.ac.cn/ [1] http://english.xtbg.cas.cn/ [2] https://www.google.com/maps/@24.855629,106.7298439,696m/data...

I also wanted to see some original source images. As in times past, a random slashdot user [1] comes through in a pinch: [2]

[1]: https://news.slashdot.org/story/22/05/20/1732226/ancient-for... [2]: https://twitter.com/NineDragons2/status/1524634961525026819

I don't think they did? Xinhua[1] reports a 2020 capture date, the stock photoist[2] credited by [3] reports a 2018 capture date?

[1]: http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-10/10/c_139430977.htm

[2]: https://www.alamy.com/beijing-china-17th-may-2018-photo-take...

[3]: https://www.livescience.com/new-sinkhole-discovered-china

Ah slashdot, 4chan with reasonable moderation. Good times, good times.

What do you mean, less dramatic! That's amazing. Except for the ill-fitting music.

- everything i read about the next global pandemic predict it will come out of Brazil or China via a well preserved primitive fauna - in flora as described by the video -- should the people in the video be using some from of PPE? --

>should the people in the video be using some from of PPE?

No.

What creates risk are wet markets selling live wild-caught animals in unsanitary conditions. These are breeding grounds for diseases to develop in animal populations and especially to have lots of opportunities to develop the abilities to jump species.

Animals in the wild in China are of no greater risk than animals in the wild anywhere else in the world. Confinement, sanitation, and density is what creates risk, not national borders for animals in the wild.

> No.

That seems really confident and terse for a really complicated question. Wouldn't PPE be somewhat useful in protecting this 'ancient forest' from diseases the researchers/visitors may be bringing to the area?

> Confinement, sanitation, and density is what creates risk

That describes every industrial farm/mega farm. Guess which country has multiple ag-gag laws and anti-whistleblower laws? If your statement is true, why are such industries not only permitted to expand but even provided with subsidies from tax payers? [eg Wichita and Cargill ]

Would it be unfair to say the incredible demand for animals is what creates the risk?

>Would it be unfair to say the incredible demand for animals is what creates the risk?

A poorly regulated market which takes known risks (selling wild live animals kept in dense, squalid conditions for human consumption) creates the risk.

>Wouldn't PPE be somewhat useful in protecting this 'ancient forest' from diseases the researchers/visitors may be bringing to the area?

No. The remarkable part is that it is in a sinkhole, the ecology of it is likely entirely unremarkable. This is not a fragile super-isolated ecosystem (there are a few of these in caves or islands which are and do sometimes merit special protections because they've actually been well isolated beyond just being in a hole)

>That describes every industrial farm/mega farm.

The wet market risk comes from live wild-caught animals, squalid conditions, sold to eat. Industrial farming is a controlled closed environment where diseases are known and managed, it's not wonderful, but it is nothing like the wet market risks coming out of China and a few other places around the world.

> Industrial farming is a controlled closed environment where diseases are known and managed,

That doesn't sound like an accurate description to me based on the evidence I have read and seen in Kansas. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7416595/ , https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1817674/

Factory farming, as I said, is definitely not an ideal thing. But it has nowhere near the risk profile for evolving human disease as unregulated wet markets. The two links you posted have nothing to do with that, which was the topic at hand.

> But it has nowhere near the risk profile for evolving human disease as unregulated wet markets

Is your assessment based on evidence? I'd be interested to read a statistical analysis comparing the number of diseases that have come out of "regulated" industrial/factory farming versus unregulated wet markets.

What creates risks are supervirus labs in places with safety concerns and outsourcing research to them.

these things are such a staple of chinese wuxia/xianxia dramas. the hero(es) fall into the beautiful sinkhole full of ancient vegetation, get stuck there and meditate a lot, usually an ancestor/spirit imparts their wisdom onto them, and then they emerge wiser and more powerful. it's fun to imagine how those myths evolved through the various philosophy-religions like buddhism/taoism/confucionism.

For anybody looking for such a story, I'd recommend Memories of the Fall. This one is written by a westerner, so I'd love more suggestions of good wuxia/xianxia written by Chinese authors (please link to a translation...).

The indie wuxia TTRPG "Hearts of Wulin"[0] has an expansion appendix, including:

- Han Feizi by Han Fei

- Records of the Grand Historian (Shi Ji) by Sima Qian

- The Book of Han

- The Book of Later Han

- Nie Yinniang

- The Kunlun Slave

- Thirteenth Madam Jing

- Red String

- The Bearded Warrior

- Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong

- Water Margin by Shi Na’an

- Justice Bao stories from Sanxia Wuyi and Xiaowuyi

- Gong’an Qiwen

- Ernii Yingxiong Zhuan

Works by Jin Yong

- The Book and the Sword

- The Condor trilogy

- The Smiling, Proud Wanderer

- The Deer and the Cauldron

- Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils

I've enjoyed one retelling of the Water Margin in podcast form[1], but struggled through available Jin Yong wuxia TV[2].

0. https://www.gauntlet-rpg.com/hearts-of-wulin.html

1. https://pca.st/podcast/daa596d0-eff2-0136-324d-08b04944ede4

2. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzfNoYeTnhXL-HfBWz0tCe5Ep...

Probably because of 'Romance of the Condor Heroes', the series defined the Wuxia genre & the sinkhole is a major plot point. In the west similarly a lot tropes of get lifted from LOTR

The article does not mention any details about this "ancient forest". In what way is it unique or spectacular? Are there species of trees that are found nowhere else? Enquiring minds would like to know :-)

Chinese sequoia tree, Metasequoia, a more hardy version of the Giant Redwoods of California was discovered under similar circumstances. The Metasequoia is now planted in landscapes all over the world as it can tolerate much colder temperatures.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3QTq6tQfhY

Has neat upwards picture: https://www.livescience.com/new-sinkhole-discovered-china

Note the caption of that picture specifically says it's not a picture of the sinkhole that the article is about.

I like that they have not disclosed the exact location. I am always concerned that publicity can lead to visitors and damage to natural preserves like this one.

That does happen, but this is trees in a big hole - not that easy to damage just by visiting.

"Trees in a big hole" is a wildly reductive take. The article already mentions "dense brush on the forest floor [standing] shoulder-high," which would easily be damaged by a flock of tourists. Plus you almost certainly have mosses, lichen, and fungi, likely a variety of insects, and even possibly some small vertebrates.

Don't miss the forest for the trees.

I wonder how long that'll remain the case. This reminds me of the Utah monolith and the Sarlacc Pit in British Columbia - both of which were announced and shown in photo and videos but with the exact location undisclosed. And in both cases curious folks had IDed the exact locations via open source means and there were placemarks on Google Maps within a few days. Maybe it'll be different in China?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_monolith https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells_Gray_Park_Cave_discovery

there are about ~300 sinkholes in that particular county. Not really a big deal. Some of the sinkholes are already developed as parks I assume

Hey, it's the plot of Etrian Odyssey! A sinkhole with a forest inside was discovered, and the nearby town became mobbed with adventurers. It turns out there were many layers of forests and other biomes the further down you went into the sinkhole.

Top 'Lost World movies'. [https://www.imdb.com/list/ls066679516/]

The 1925 silent included stop-motion animation and originally began with an appearance by Sir Arthur himself!

Edit: found it: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loPZFVju8Nw]

Very neat. This reminds me a video I watched last week[0]. The video goes about "geological formations" that behaves like islands(primarily the effects it casts over the fauna) but aren't classified as such.

As far as I understand this sinkhole could be also classified as an "island".

[0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OqUjXEqUtc

This is the premise of Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World. Dinosaurs and other ancient beasts kept isolated in the crater of an ancient volcano, the slopes of which are almost impossible to get over.

That’s a cool concept. Real world we have ngorogoro crater which elephants, who are surprisingly good climbers, make the journey in and out

It sucks there are no pictures of the actual sinkhole or forest, but this is amazing!

Yeah, it would be nice to see those prehistoric trees!! May be they want to reveal that in a paper

I find that in a lot of news publications. Like “scientists discover new images of X” and then either no image in the article, or just a very small low resolution one. I’m not sure why that is. Are these sites trying to increase retention time?

Given that I watched King Kong movies just the past weekend, the title makes for amusing imaginations.

But humor aside, the upward looking photograph from the other comment is seriously neat (& has a Hollywood dino/disaster/monster movie vibe to it). Hope the scientists find some new insect or flora species as such ecosystems would have remained undisturbed from human activities.

How come this was just discovered now? Given satelite coverage and the orweillian chinese government i would have expected that every square milimeter in china has been mapped, zoned and cataloged. Are there still parts of the world/china that are essentially undiscoveres country?

It's in a sinkhole, from a satellite image it would at most look like a valley of some sort.

The world is massive, more so if you add things that are underground or under water.

How comes nobody explored this till now? Even sinkholes in Yucatan that are known death traps have been relentlessly explored, including with autonomous submarines.

There are a lot of caves, most of them with nothing noteworthy inside. Exploring a known deathtrap is more likely than some random hole in a rural mountain.

Even leaving satellite images out, I don't understand either how this only got discovered now. Is China so sparsely populated in some areas? I understand that not every place is like Europe where every square centimeter has been utilized by humans in some capacity throughout history, but even in comparatively empty US, I cannot imagine something huge like this only getting discovered now.

Mexico has lots of sinkholes and there have been massive efforts to fully explore those, including autonomous submarines for mapping. Yet here is an enormous sinkhole in a country of 1 billion+ people and it gets "discovered"

One factor is that this is not in the same river system as the 29 already discovered large sinkholes in the area. This is from something called the Fugui underground river / water system.

I'd guess that it had been discovered before though. Perhaps just not explored in detail, by a caving/karst research group.

Made in Abyss anime vibes

Real talk, though. That is easily one of the best television shows I've ever seen.

I always shyed (shied? Shy-ed?) away from it because of the memes around how 'pedo' the manga is, and it's anime which has never been my flavor.

But holy crap is that show good. The world building is just startlingly thorough. It really scratches the sci-fi/high fantasy/exploration itch.

Yes, but it's so dark. One of the darkest stories I've ever experienced.

I love it, but it's still very hard to watch/read.

I know the stock photo isn't the one, but just look at the roads that the Chinese built (on the left part of the stock photo)

Isn't that standard when dealing with high elevation? Going straight up is much harder than gradually going up a longer distance.

Over what amount of time did the hole appear?

I wonder if there will be some novel corona virus discovered there.

Un'Goro Crater confirmed.

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