* Astronomy

Discovery of subfossil wood opens new research avenues

A Sunday walk led to the discovery of a subfossil forest which has remained intact for over 13,000 years in the Zurich clay, opening new doors for Central European dendrochronology.
The fact that many finds have happened by chance was demonstrated again recently in Zurich. Daniel Nievergelt, a dendrochronologist at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL, was just having a look at a building site on the southern edge of the city. He knew there was some justification for hope of a spectacular discovery from his collaboration with his colleague Felix Kaiser, who died in 2012 and who in 1999 had already found subfossil wood during the excavation of the Uetliberg Highway Tunnel.
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