Drought uncovering 10,000-year-old tree stumps in Friesland lake

Due to the current drought in the Netherlands, over 10,000-year-old tree stumps have surfaced in the Klaarkampstermeer near Rinsumaeast. They are the remnants of an ancient pine forest that grew in the area after the last ice age, employees of Staatsbosbeheer said to Omrop Fryslan.

The tree stumps spent years underwater with no oxygen, so they are beautifully preserved. A thick layer of peat should actually cover them, but the monks of the medieval monastery Klaarkamp removed that, causing the area to lie so low that a small lake formed.

“These trunks are remnants of a time when Friesland was covered with open pine forest. That was a period after the ice age, about 15,000 years ago. Then we had a polar climate here. On to the Holocene, the furthest point after the ice age, it started to warm up, and these pine forests came into being,” forest ranger Gjerryt Hoekstra said to the broadcaster.

These remnants of a time when the climate changed are now revealed by another period of climate change. The lake is usually fed by salt seepage water, Hoekstra said. “But the lake has actually dried up completely, it turns completely white.”