LOT'S OF TREE PICS

"Underwhelming": Biden admin tosses token protection to old-growth forests

Rae Hodge

SALON
Wed, December 20, 2023 

Old-growth forest Olympic National Forest Washington 

Greg Vaughn /VW PICS/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

A coalition of more than 120 environmental groups applauded what it called "an important first step" Tuesday, when the U.S. Forest Service announced a more conservation-friendly proposal for its management of 128 national forests and grasslands. In a April 2021 executive order, President Joe Biden told the US Forest Service to start inventorying and protecting the 150-year-old "old-growth" forests which face logging threats. More than two and a half years later, the Forest Service is now finally proposing a change to its management policy of the ancient trees — a move that only comes after critics accused the Forest Service last June of dragging its feet on behalf of the logging industry, as first reported by The Huffington Post. Citing disastrous threats to the forests, the Forest Service proposal would mark the first nationwide amendment in the agency's 118-year history and restrict logging on 25 million acres of old-growth timber. But "mature" forests — those just shy of 150 years — are still vulnerable to destruction.

“The FS has squandered the opportunity to respond meaningfully to [Biden’s executive order] by limiting the scope to old growth only, with no provisions — none — for mature trees and forests,” Jim Furnish, former Forest Service deputy chief, told HuffPost. “This small step forward is certainly better than nothing, but a far cry from the big leap needed to respond to our climate change crises. The FS logged and liquidated most of the old growth with tragic consequences and has an obligation to not only protect what remains but restore millions of acres by allowing mature forests to grow. This proposal fails entirely in that regard.”

Along with the Climate Forests Campaign coalition, support for the proposal came from the Sierra Club which called the proposal "a meaningful step towards averting climate catastrophe" and "safeguarding vulnerable ecosystems." Meanwhile, US companies are producing more oil than any country in history and is set to produce a global record of 13.3 million barrels per day by the end of the year, after President Joe Biden urged them to pump more last year and then approved a controversial Alaskan drilling project this March. The new oil production flood is outpacing the record of 13.1 million daily gallons, set by companies under former President Donald Trump in 2020. The new surge in production also comes as part of a new drilling technique that consumes vast amounts of water. The Forest Service's proposal now awaits finalization by President Joe Biden.

Chris Wood, the president of Trout Unlimited and a former official with the US Forest Service, told the Associated Press the policy “is a step in the right direction”.

“This is the first time the Forest Service has said its national policy will be to protect old growth,” Wood said.

Other advocates are emphasizing that this is just Biden’s first step toward fulfilling his executive order.

“Protecting our old-growth trees from logging is an important first step to ensure these giants continue to store vast amounts of carbon, but other older forests also need protection,” Randi Spivak, public lands policy director with the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a press release. “To fulfill President Biden’s executive order and address the magnitude of the climate crisis, the Forest Service also needs to protect our mature forests, which if allowed to grow will become the old growth of tomorrow.”

Joe Biden plans to ban logging in US old-growth forests in 2025
Lauren Aratani

THE GUARDIAN
Tue, December 19, 2023 

Photograph: Zach Urness/AP


Joe Biden’s administration on Tuesday announced a new proposal aimed at banning logging in old-growth forests, a move meant to protect millions of trees that play a key role in fighting the climate crisis.

The proposal comes from an executive order signed by the president on Earth Day in 2022 that directed the US Forest Service and the land management bureau to conduct an inventory of old-growth and mature forest groves as well as to develop policies that protect them.

“We think this will allow us to respond effectively and strategically to the biggest threats that face old growth,” the US agriculture secretary, Tom Vilsack, told the Washington Post. “At the end of the day, it will protect not just the forests but also the culture and heritage connected to the forests.”

The US Forest Service oversees 193m acres of forests and grasslands, 144m of which are forests. In its inventory conducted after Biden’s executive order, the agency found that the vast majority of forests it oversees, about 80%, are either old-growth or mature forests. It found more than 32m acres of old-growth forests and 80m acres of mature forests on federal land.

The land management bureau defines old-growth forests as those with trees that are in later stages of stand development, which typically means at least 120 years of growth, depending on species. The giant sequoias in California, for example, are old-growth trees. Mature forests, meanwhile, have trees that are in the development stage immediately before old growth.

Advocates for years have been pushing the Biden administration to explicitly ban logging in old-growth and mature forests. Trees that are in their old-growth stage are able to store more carbon than younger trees, making them a natural solution to fighting the climate crisis.

In 2022, shortly before Biden announced his executive order, a group of more than 130 scientists wrote a letter to Biden advocating a ban on logging in old-growth forests.

“Older forests provide the most above-ground carbon storage potential on Earth, with mature forests and larger trees driving most accumulation of forest carbon in the critical next few decades,” the letter read. “Left vulnerable to logging, though, they cannot fulfill these vital functions.”

The ban will come into effect in early 2025, allowing time for the Forest Service to finalize rules that will protect old-growth forests from logging. Because it comes under an executive order, its existence depends on the outcome of the 2024 presidential election, making advocates worried about the protections’ vulnerability to the country’s political climate.

But federal agencies have also been under pressure from the timber industry, which argues that logging creates economic activity and helps to fight wildfires. The proposal focuses on most old-growth forests, leaving mature forests still vulnerable to logging, which is a middle ground between environmentalists and the timber industry.

Will humans cut down trees that have been alive for thousands of years? New rules say no.

Trevor Hughes, USA TODAY
Updated Wed, December 20, 2023 



The nation's oldest trees are getting new protections under a Biden administration initiative to make it harder to cut down old-growth forests for lumber.

The news has implications for climate change and the planet: Forests lock up carbon dioxide, helping reduce the impacts of climate change. That's in addition to providing habitat for wild animals, filtering drinking water sources and offering an unmatched historical connection.

Announced Tuesday, the initiative covers about 32 million acres of old growth and 80 million acres of mature forest nationally ‒ a land area a little larger than California.


“The administration has rightly recognized that protecting America's mature and old-growth trees and forests must be a core part of America's conservation vision and playbook to combat the climate crisis,” Garett Rose, senior attorney at Natural Resources Defense Council said in a statement.
What trees are being protected?

Most of the biggest stretches of old-growth forests in the United States are in California and the Pacific Northwest, along with Alaska, although this initiative also covers many smaller forests on the East Coast where trees may be only a few hundred years old. Old-growth sequoias and bristlecone pines in the West can be well over 2,000 years old.

Environmental activists have identified federally owned old and mature-growth forest areas about the size of Phoenix that are proposed for logging, from portions of the Green Mountain Forest in Vermont to the Evans Creek Project in Oregon, where officials are proposing to decertify almost 1,000 acres of spotted owl habitat to permit logging. The Biden plan tightens the approval process for logging old and mature forests and proposes creating plans to restore and protect those areas.

The forests targeted in the new Biden order are managed by the U.S. Forest Service, separate from other initiatives to protect similar forests overseen by the Bureau of Land Management.

US has long history of logging

European settlers colonizing North America found a landscape largely untouched by timber harvesting, and they heavily logged the land to build cities and railroads, power industries and float a Navy.

In the late 1800s, federal officials began more actively managing the nation's forests to help protect water sources and provide timber harvests and later expanded that mission to help protect federal forests from over-cutting. And while more than half of the nation's forests are privately owned, they're also among the youngest, in comparison to federally protected old-growth and mature forests.

Logging jobs once powered the economies of many states but environmental restrictions have weakened the industry as regulators sought to protect wildlife and the natural environment. Old-growth timber is valuable because it can take less work to harvest and turn into large boards, which are themselves more valuable because they can be larger and stronger.

“Our ancient forests are some of the most powerful resources we have for taking on the climate crisis and preserving ecosystems,” Sierra Club forests campaign manager Alex Craven said in a statement. “We’re pleased to see that the Biden administration continues to embrace forest conservation as the critical opportunity that it is."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Old-growth forests rules protect old trees, Biden administration says

Biden administration moves to protect old growth forests

Tue, December 19, 2023 

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack unveiled the administration's proposed changes to old-growth forest protections on Tuesday.

 File Photo by Yuri Gripas/UPI

Dec. 19 (UPI) -- The Biden administration announced a new plan Tuesday to protect some of the nation's oldest trees on national forests and grasslands throughout the United States.

The action includes what the administration described as a "first-of-its-kind" proposal from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to amend all 128 forest land management plans throughout the nation "to conserve and restore old-growth forests across the National Forest System."

"Old-growth forests are a vital part of our ecosystems and a special cultural resource. This proposed nationwide forest plan amendment -- the first in the agency's history -- is an important step in conserving these national treasures," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said. "Climate change is presenting new threats like historic droughts and catastrophic wildfire. This clear direction will help our old-growth forests thrive across our shared landscape."

The White House said the Forest Service would also initiate the process of updating the Northwest Forest Plan for climate resilience, including for mature and old forest ecosystems.

"The Northwest Forest Plan, initiated in 1994, guides the management of certain federally managed forests in Washington, Oregon, and California. These forests contain roughly one-quarter of the remaining old growth on the national forest system in the lower 48 states," the White House said.

The old-growth forest protections would prevent commercial logging on all 193 million acres of forests and grasslands, protecting some of the nation's oldest trees, many more than 100 years old and rich in carbon.

White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Brenda Mallory said U.S. forests absorb carbon dioxide equivalent to more than 10% of our nation's annual greenhouse gas emissions, making it a critical player in climate change.

"Under President Biden's leadership, our administration is acting to conserve and restore old-growth forests so nature can continue to be a key climate solution," Mallory said.

Officials said the proposal would benefit about 25 million acres of old growth overseen by the Forest Service, of which 45% is not protected from logging, and allows continued cutting under specific conditions.

It also requires the Forest Service to keep tabs on changes to old growth and efforts to protect it.

Biden administration proposes new steps to preserve the nation’s old-growth forests

Donald Judd, CNN
Tue, December 19, 2023 


The Biden administration proposed new steps Tuesday to conserve and restore the nation’s old-growth forests in a move it projects could combat greenhouse gas emissions and counter the effects of climate change.

The proposal from the US Department of Agriculture would amend all 128 forest land management plans across the country for the first time, with a goal of preserving and restoring old-growth and mature forests across the nation.

According to a fact sheet shared with CNN, the USDA and the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management oversee a combined 112 million acres of old-growth and mature forests on federal lands.

Old-growth and mature forests are a crucial part of the administration’s efforts to combat climate change, serving as a carbon sink by absorbing the equivalent of more than 10% of the nation’s annual greenhouse gas emissions. Old-growth forests in particular tend to have a higher carbon density, which the USDA says makes them well suited to store more carbon than younger forests.

The proposal, the White House said Tuesday, falls under a 2022 Earth Day Executive Order from President Joe Biden aimed at tackling the climate crisis and strengthening climate resilience.

In addition, for the first time since 2007, the National Forest Service is updating its Northwest Forest Plan, which guides management of roughly one quarter of the continental United States’ federally managed forests, all located in Washington, Oregon and California, to better prepare for climate resilience.

Biden administration takes step toward protecting old-growth trees

Rachel Frazin

THE HILL
Tue, December 19, 2023 



The Biden administration on Tuesday took a step toward protecting older trees that store carbon dioxide and help to lessen climate change.

It issued a proposed plan with apparent limitations on cutting down old-growth trees — saying lands can’t be managed with the primary intention of logging such trees for economic reasons.

It does say that “ecologically appropriate” timber harvesting will be allowed as long as it meets certain standards.

The Agriculture Department also said it was proposing incorporating a “national intent” to maintain and improve old-growth forests into all of the land management plans within the National Forest System.

David Dreher, senior manager for public lands at the National Wildlife Federation, said the establishment of the “national intent” to protect these forests is important because it will inform decisions made by Forest Service officials.

“It does guide land managers in an important way when they look at how they want to manage acres on the ground,” Dreher told The Hill.

“An affirmative statement that says we need old forests and what I do in these old forests or in mature forests that I want to recruit into old forests contributes to the long-term persistence of those forests,” he said. “We’ve never had that before.”

Studies have shown that old-growth trees store significant amounts of carbon dioxide — making their protection important for fighting climate change.


Biden Administration Finally Moves To Protect Remaining Old-Growth Forests From Logging

Chris D'Angelo

HUFFPOST
Updated Tue, December 19, 2023 


The U.S. Forest Service, an agency with a long history of prioritizing timber production, has taken a first step toward protecting the nation’s most ancient forests from logging.

The agency on Tuesday announced a proposal to amend management plans for all 128 national forests and grasslands across the country to better conserve carbon-rich “old-growth” forests, typically defined as those at least 150 years old and largely undisturbed by human activity.

“Old-growth forests are a vital part of our ecosystems and a special cultural resource. This proposed nationwide forest plan amendment — the first in the agency’s history — is an important step in conserving these national treasures,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a statement. “Climate change is presenting new threats like historic droughts and catastrophic wildfire. This clear direction will help our old-growth forests thrive across our shared landscape.”

The proposal, if finalized, would restrict commercial logging across the approximately 25 million acres of old-growth timber that the Forest Service manages, but stops short of limiting harvest in “mature” forests, those that are decades old but haven’t reached the old-growth stage.

The move comes after months of the Forest Service seemingly dragging its feet on the issue, as HuffPost previously reported.

A logger cuts down a large fir tree in the Umpqua National Forest, near Oakridge, Oregon.

The Climate Forests Campaign, a coalition of more than 120 environmental groups, applauded Tuesday’s announcement as “an important first step” but called on the Forest Service to also take action to safeguard mature trees. Together, mature and old-growth forests form a key natural climate solution, sequestering a massive amount of planet-warming greenhouse gasses.

“Our ancient forests are some of the most powerful resources we have for taking on the climate crisis and preserving ecosystems,” Alex Craven, forests campaign manager at the Sierra Club, said in a statement. “We are pleased to see that the Biden administration continues to embrace forest conservation as the critical opportunity that it is. This amendment is a meaningful step towards averting climate catastrophe, safeguarding vulnerable ecosystems, and fulfilling President Biden’s commitment to preserve old-growth and mature trees across federal lands.”

The proposal stems from an executive order that President Joe Biden signed in April 2021 that tasked the nation’s two largest federal land managers, the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, with first inventorying existing old-growth and mature forests and then crafting policies to better conserve and restore them.

Earlier this year, critics accused the Forest Service of not taking the executive order seriously and resisting abandoning what many view as an entrenched, logging-centric mindset within the agency.

Jim Furnish, a former deputy chief of the Forest Service in the Clinton administration, told HuffPost he is “underwhelmed” by Tuesday’s action.

“The FS has squandered the opportunity to respond meaningfully to [Biden’s executive order] by limiting the scope to old growth only, with no provisions — none — for mature trees and forests,” he said in an email. “This small step forward is certainly better than nothing, but a far cry from the big leap needed to respond to our climate change crises. The FS logged and liquidated most of the old growth with tragic consequences and has an obligation to not only protect what remains but restore millions of acres by allowing mature forests to grow. This proposal fails entirely in that regard.”

Steve Pedery, conservation director at environmental organization Oregon Wild, said the proposal is better than he was expecting.

“It is not the permanent mature and old-growth forest protection rule we are ultimately seeking, but if someone offers me a national ban on old-growth logging and a path towards a broader policy that includes mature, I’ll take it,” he said in an email.

But Pedery is concerned that a future administration could stymie the Biden administration effort.

“Development and implementation will almost certainly spill over into 2025 and beyond, so how effective it will ultimately be depends on who is in the White House,” he said. “That is why we have advocated for an administrative rule, like the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, because it would be much harder for future administrations to roll back or modify.”

Asked about the durability of the agency’s proposal, Vilsack told The Associated Press that it would be “a serious mistake for the country to take a step backwards now that we’ve taken significant steps forward.”

US Forest Service proposes to conserve old-growth forests, including Pisgah, Nantahala

Mitchell Black, Asheville Citizen Times
Wed, December 20, 2023 

ASHEVILLE – The U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service announced a proposal Dec. 19 to conserve and steward old-growth forest conditions on national forests and grasslands nationwide. This plan would have a particular impact on Western North Carolina, home to the Nantahala and Pisgah national forests, which cover more than 1 million acres across the mountains.

Old-growth forests are systems created by older trees. They can differ from younger forests by having large accumulations of woody material, increased canopy layers, species composition and ecosystem function, according to a 1994 U.S. Forest Service definition. These forests store large amounts of carbon, increase biodiversity, produce clean water and reduce wildfire risks.

The proposal follows an Executive Order signed by President Joe Biden in April 2022, which directed his administration to conserve old-growth forests.

Hikers in Pisgah National Forest.

“The agency is telling us ‘this is where we want to go in the future and this is who we want to be,’” Senior Attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center Sam Evans told the Citizen Times Dec. 19.

“We want protecting old-growth to be a big part of the job of the forest service. I can't overstate how important that is. We've been waiting on that for a long time.”

The USDA plans to amend each of the nation’s individual forest management plans, which are the planning documents for national forests and grasslands. As part of these amendments, national forests will need to create or adopt a strategy for old-growth forest conservation. The amendments direct national forests to maintain and improve old-growth forests over time.

The U.S. Forest Service released a final version of the Pisgah-Nantahala Land Management Plan Feb. 17 after more than a decade of work to revise it.

Critically, the amendments would create standards for protecting old-growth forests, including restricting vegetation management, like logging, from “degrading or impairing the composition structure or ecological processes in a manner that prevents the long-term persistence of old-growth forest conditions within the plan area.”

Forest managers can manage vegetation for the purpose of proactive stewardship for facilitating the growth or proliferation of old-growth forests.

The Big Ivy area of Pisgah National Forest in Buncombe County.

The proposed amendments will now face a multi-stage review process, during which the public will have an opportunity to solicit input and the USFS will conduct an environmental impact study. This review process will begin with a public comment period. Commenters can submit their opinions through a portal on the USFS website.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Forest Service conducted a study that found that old-growth forests represent 18% of all forested lands managed USFS and the Bureau of Land Management. North Carolina’s four national forests comprise 1.25 million acres of public lands.

More: Asheville groups threaten to sue US Forest Service over Endangered Species Act violation

More: Pisgah, Nantahala plan done: Forest service still seeking feedback, logging fears remain

Between fires and lawsuits, it has been a busy year for North Carolina’s national forests.

Wildfires burned across WNC during the fall, including in the Pisgah and Nantahala national forests.

In July, six conservation groups threatened to sue the U.S. Forest Service for violating the Endangered Species Act regarding the Nantahala-Pisgah National Forest Land Management Plan finalized in February. The organizations said that the logging proposal in the land management plan would impact six protected bat species. They gave the Forest Service 60 days to address their concerns. That period has expired and the groups are eligible to sue.

Mitchell Black covers Buncombe County and health care for the Citizen Times. Email him at mblack@citizentimes.com or follow him on Twitter @MitchABlack. Please help support local journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Times.

STICK TO 2050

Canada says all cars and trucks must be zero emission by 2035, industry unhappy
TRANSITION TO HYBRID POSSIBLE BY THEN

David Ljunggren
Tue, December 19, 2023 

 Cars are pictured in traffic on Capitale highway in Quebec City

By David Ljunggren

OTTAWA (Reuters) -Canada on Tuesday released final regulations mandating that all passenger cars, SUVs, crossovers and light trucks sold by 2035 must be zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs), part of the government's overall plan to combat climate change.

ZEVs must make up at least 20% of all cars sold by 2026 and at least 60% by 2030. Industry officials say electric vehicles (EVs) represented 12.1% of new vehicle sales in the third quarter of 2023.

Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said the regulations provided industry with the certainty it needed to address the issue of limited availability of EVs.

"(This) ensures Canadians have access to our fair share of the global supply of these vehicles," he told a televised news conference in Toronto.

Transportation accounts for about 22% of Canada's greenhouse gas emissions.

The rules are similar to those adopted by California, which says 100% of new cars sold in 2035 must be plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV), EVs or powered by hydrogen fuel cell. A total of 17 U.S. states have agreed to adopt the regulations.

Global EV sales now make up about 13% of all vehicle sales and are likely to rise to between 40%-45% of the market by the end of the decade, according to the Paris-based International Energy Agency.

According to the data platform Statista, Tesla accounted for 36.7% of EV sales in Canada in 2022, with Hyundai in second place with 11.1%.

The Canadian automobile industry says the regulations are too ambitious, noting the higher cost of electric vehicles.

It also complains that the charging network is incomplete, especially in rural areas. Canada, the world's second largest country, has a population of just 40 million people.

"Achieving higher ZEV sales levels depends on favorable market conditions, stronger consumer purchase incentives ... widespread charging infrastructure (and) expanded grid capacity," said Brian Kingston, President of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association.

The government's charging effort is focused on building EV ports in populous public areas and multi-family residential buildings, which experts warn may not be enough to rapidly increase adoption.

In an effort to address complaints that EVs are impractical in remote and northern areas, where cold conditions can cut the efficiency of batteries, PHEVs with an all-electric range of 80 km or more will remain eligible for sale in 2035 and beyond.

Canada has missed every emissions reduction target it has ever set. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says fighting climate change is one of his Liberal government's top priorities.

His emissions reduction plan is flawed and will not reach the target of cutting greenhouse gas output by 40% to 45% below the 2005 level by 2030, a top watchdog said last month.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by David Gregorio)

Canada announces deal to backstop carbon credit prices for Entropy CCS project

CCS C02 USED FOR FRACKING

Wed, December 20, 2023 
By Nia Williams

Dec 20 (Reuters) - The Canada Growth Fund (CGF), a federal clean-tech financing agency, on Wednesday said it would invest C$200 million ($149.72 million) in carbon capture and storage developer Entropy Inc and backstop carbon credit prices for the first time.

Under the terms of the 15-year deal, known as a carbon credit offtake (CCO) commitment, the CGF has agreed to buy up to 1 million tonnes a year of carbon credits generated by Calgary-based Entropy, a subsidiary of oil and gas producer Advantage Energy.

The initial commitment will enable Entropy to sell up to 185,000 tonnes a year of credits, generated by the second phase of a carbon capture and storage project at Advantage's Glacier gas plant in Alberta, to the CGF at a price of C$86.50 per tonne.

Last year the company also agreed a C$300 million investment deal with infrastructure firm Brookfield.

"By creating a large-scale CCO to guarantee long-term carbon pricing and adding C$200 million to our existing Brookfield funding for third-party projects, Entropy has a clear path to accelerating growth and reducing emissions, right here at home," Entropy CEO Mike Belenkie said in a statement.

The CGF is a C$15 billion body set up last year by Canada's Finance Ministry to help attract private investment in clean tech by mitigating financing risks.

Ottawa has been working on ways to provide carbon price certainty to firms looking to invest in carbon capture and storage to reduce their emissions, in addition to providing investment tax credits.

Canada is the world's fourth-largest crude producer and the oil and gas sector is its highest-polluting industry, accounting for more than a quarter of all emissions.

National Bank analysts said the deal was a "massive milestone" for Entropy. Dale Beugin, executive vice president with the Canadian Climate Institute, said the investment will help minimize risk in clean growth projects and make carbon pricing work better in Canada.

"By guaranteeing value for Entropy Inc's carbon credits, this investment drives emissions reductions, without crowding out private investment," Beugin said.

($1 = 1.3358 Canadian dollars) (Reporting by Nia Williams; Editing by Michael Perry)

Scientists Simulated Runaway Greenhouse Effect and It's Horrifying

Victor Tangermann
Wed, December 20, 2023 

FALL OF THE Greenhouse of Usher

For the first time, a team of researchers has simulated what would happen if trapped greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere trigger a snowball effect, causing a dramatic rise in the planet's temperature.

And the results are ugly: "an almost-unstoppable and very complicated to reverse runaway greenhouse effect," according to a statement, which would quickly make our home "as inhospitable as Venus," with temperatures shooting up by hundreds of degrees Fahrenheit in a matter of a few hundred years.
Hell Hole

As detailed in a new paper published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, the team from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) studied what would happen if the greenhouse effect were trapped inside the Earth's atmosphere as if under an emergency thermal blanket.


If the effect were to rise too much, the amount of water vapor from evaporating oceans could be lethal.

"There is a critical threshold for this amount of water vapor, beyond which the planet cannot cool down anymore," said main author and UNIGE postdoctoral researcher Guillaume Chaverot in the statement. "From there, everything gets carried away until the oceans end up getting fully evaporated and the temperature reaches several hundred degrees."

The researchers took the concept of a runaway greenhouse effect to its natural — and hellish — conclusion.

"It is the first time a team has studied the transition itself with a 3D global climate model, and has checked how the climate and the atmosphere evolve during that process," said coauthor and CNRS researcher Martin Turbet.

According to Chaverot, the "structure of the atmosphere is deeply altered," with "very dense clouds developing in the high atmosphere."

Besides painting an alarming picture of our planet's future, the researchers say their study could also shed light on how to hunt for alien life in exoplanetary systems. For instance, their observed "fingerprint" of cloud patterns could be detectable in observations of exoplanets with atmospheres.

As far as the Earth is concerned, however, the situation looks dire. If 33 feet of the ocean's surface would evaporate, the researchers calculate that the atmospheric pressure would increase by 1 bar at ground level.

"In just a few hundred years, we would reach a ground temperature of over [932 degrees Fahrenheit]," Chaverot explained in the statement. "Later, we would even reach 273 bars of surface pressure and over [2732 degrees Fahrenheit], when all of the oceans would end up totally evaporated."

More on global warming: Billions in Funding Pouring Into Facilities for Sucking Carbon From Atmosphere


How the runaway greenhouse gas effect can destroy a planet's habitability — including Earth's

Robert Lea
Tue, December 19, 2023

An illustration of the Earth in space connected to its inhospitable alter-ego.

Using advanced computer simulations, scientists have shown how easily a runaway greenhouse effect can rapidly transform a habitable planet into a hellish world inhospitable to life.

Not only does this research have implications for our understanding of extrasolar planets, or "exoplanets," but it also offers insight into the human-driven climate crisis on Earth.

The team of astronomers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and CNRS laboratories of Paris and Bordeaux saw that after initial stages of a planet's climate transformation, the planet's atmosphere, structure and cloud coverage get significantly altered, such that a difficult-to-halt runaway effect starts to commence. Alarmingly, this process could be initiated here on Earth with just a slight change in solar luminosity or by a global average temperature rise of just a few tens of degrees. Even those minor changes could lead to our planet becoming totally inhospitable.

Thus, the research offers a stark climate change warning.

"Until now, other key studies in climatology have focused solely on either the temperate state before the runaway or either the inhabitable state post-runaway," Martin Turbet, CNRS scientist and team member, said in a statement. "It is the first time a team has studied the transition itself with a 3D global climate model, and has checked how the climate and the atmosphere evolve during that process."

Related: Tiny 14-inch satellite studies ‘hot Jupiter’ exoplanets evaporating into space
A critical greenhouse effect

The runaway greenhouse effect in the team's simulation can see a planet change from having a temperate, Earth-like hospitable state to one that exhibits a hellscape with surface temperatures of around 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (1,000 degrees Celsius). That is hot enough to melt lead. These are temperatures even higher than those at the surface of Earth's famously hellish neighbor, Venus.

The cause of this runaway greenhouse effect is something very familiar: Water vapor — a major greenhouse gas. Though water vapor may not be the first greenhouse gas we think of when it comes to climate change on Earth, like more familiar greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, water vapor stops solar radiation absorbed by a planet's surface from escaping back to space. This traps heat around the world like a thermal blanket. Scientists call it the greenhouse effect.

In small doses, the greenhouse effect is useful; for instance, it stops Earth from exhibiting a temperature below the freezing point of water. But too much greenhouse-induced warming can force oceans to evaporate, putting much water vapor in the atmosphere. As you might imagine, that can cause even more greenhouse warming. It's like a feedback loop. Aha, the "runaway" greenhouse gas effect.

Venus actually provides a stark example of what can happen when a runaway greenhouse effect is kickstarted.

"There is a critical threshold for this amount of water vapor, beyond which the planet cannot cool down anymore," research leader and former University of Geneva Department of Astronomy scientist Guillaume Chaverot said. From there, everything gets carried away until the oceans end up getting fully evaporated and the temperature reaches several hundred degrees."
Warning clouds

One of the most important and surprising aspects coming out of the team's simulation was the development of an odd cloud pattern. This pattern didn’t just increase the runaway greenhouse effect but also made it irreversible.

"From the start of the transition, we can observe some very dense clouds developing in the high atmosphere," Chaverot said. "Actually, the latter does not display anymore the temperature inversion characteristic of the Earth's atmosphere and separates its two main layers: The troposphere and the stratosphere. The structure of the atmosphere is deeply altered."

As for what this means for us, with the results of the simulation in hand, the team calculated that it would take only a small increase in solar radiation and a rise in Earth's temperature of tens of degrees to trigger an apocalyptic runaway effect. If that happened, Earth would eventually become as hostile to life as its neighbor Venus presently is.

The news comes as countries attempt to limit human-driven greenhouse gases to cap Earth's overall warming to a quantity of 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2050, showing how vital this effort really is.

The team isn't yet sure of the effect the release of greenhouse gases alone could have on the runaway process and whether that process can really just go "away" at the same temperatures. They also are yet to find whether an increase in solar luminosity could continue to drive the process.

"Assuming this runaway process would be started on Earth, an evaporation of only 10 meters of the oceans' surface would lead to a 1 bar increase of the atmospheric pressure at ground level," Chaverot said. "In just a few hundred years, we would reach a ground temperature of over 500 degrees Celsius. Later, we would even reach 273 bars of surface pressure and over 1,500 degrees Celsius, when all of the oceans would end up totally evaporated."

The research is also deeply important as humanity becomes increasingly adept at spotting and studying planets around other stars, a scientific discipline that will eventually lead to us hunting for life outside the solar system.

"By studying the climate on other planets, one of our strongest motivations is to determine their potential to host life," team member and director of the University of Geneva Life in the Universe Center (LUC) Émeline Bolmont said. "After the previous studies, we suspected already the existence of a water vapor threshold, but the appearance of this cloud pattern is a real surprise!"

The team’s research was published on Dec. 18 the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Drilling under Pennsylvania's 'Gasland' town has been banned since 2010. 

It's coming back.


MICHAEL RUBINKAM
Tue, December 19, 2023




Gas Drilling-Water Pollution
Dimock, Pa., resident Victoria Switzer speaks with members of the media during a news conference at the Susquehanna County District Courthouse in Montrose, Pa., Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2022. A year after pleading no contest to criminal charges, Coterra Energy Inc., one of Pennsylvania’s biggest natural gas companies, is poised to drill and frack in the rural community where it was banned for a dozen years over accusations it polluted the water supply. 

(AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

A year after pleading no contest to criminal charges, one of Pennsylvania’s leading natural gas companies is poised to drill and frack in the rural community where it was banned for a dozen years for polluting the water supply.

Coterra Energy Inc. has won permission from state environmental regulators to drill 11 gas wells underneath Dimock Township, in the state’s northeastern corner — the sweet spot of the largest natural gas field in the United States, according to well permit records reviewed by The Associated Press. Billions of dollars worth of natural gas, now locked in shale rock deep underground, await Coterra's drilling rigs.

Some landowners, long shut out of royalties because of the state’s lengthy moratorium, can't wait for the Houston-based drilling giant to resume production in Dimock. Other residents dread the industry's return. They worry about truck traffic, noise and the threat of new contamination.

Coterra has not set a date for the resumption of drilling. A company spokesperson, George Stark, said “Coterra is committed to safe and responsible operations wherever we work.” Under its deal with the state, the driller agreed to monitor drinking water supplies within 3,000 feet of the new gas wells and take other steps designed to mitigate risk.

Dimock, a tiny crossroads 15 miles (24 kilometers) south of the New York state line in northeastern Pennsylvania, became ground zero in a national debate over fracking — the extraction technique that spurred a boom in U.S. oil and gas drilling — after residents began reporting that methane and drilling chemicals in the water were making them sick.

A state investigation concluded that faulty gas wells drilled by Coterra’s corporate predecessor, Cabot Oil & Gas, had allowed methane to leak uncontrolled into the community’s aquifer. Cabot was banned from Dimock in 2010 after regulators accused the company of failing to keep its promise to restore or replace the water supply. An Emmy Award-winning documentary, “Gasland,” showed residents lighting their tap water on fire.

After years of litigation and a grand jury probe that resulted in criminal charges, the company pleaded no contest to a single misdemeanor count Nov. 29, 2022. Under a plea agreement, Coterra agreed to foot the bill for a $16 million public water system to supply 20 homes whose water wells had been damaged, and to pay for temporary treatment systems for those who want them.

But for some of the residents, elation about the water line turned to anger when they learned the Department of Environmental Protection had quietly lifted its long-term moratorium on gas production in Dimock. State officials have denied that Coterra pleaded no contest in exchange for being allowed to drill, but residents like Victoria Switzer said they felt deceived.

“I have seen how justice played out here, and it’s not justice,” said Switzer, whose well was among those found to be contaminated, and who has not had a drink from her kitchen faucet since 2009.

Coterra remains prohibited from drilling inside the 9-square-mile (23-square-kilometer) moratorium area itself. The company plans to start the wells outside of Dimock and drill horizontally underneath the community. Some of the planned wells will be nearly 5 miles (8 kilometers) long and well over a mile deep, snaking under the land of more than 80 individual property owners, according to permit records.

The landowners are sitting on a gas gusher. Dimock’s natural gas could be worth $2.5 billion to $3.8 billion, according to Terry Engelder, a retired Penn State geologist whose 2008 calculation of enormous reserves in the vast Marcellus Shale natural gas field helped spur a drilling frenzy in Pennsylvania.

The area’s state representative, Jonathan Fritz, said an overwhelming number of his constituents favor natural gas drilling, an important economic engine in a county where farming, logging and bluestone quarrying were primary industries. A Coterra subsidiary is the No. 1 employer in Susquehanna County, a mountainous region with a population of 38,000.

“Natural gas development has been a godsend,” Fritz said. The residents of Dimock, he said, “were harmed, they did realize a hardship, but I believe they have been made whole.”

Ron Teel, a township supervisor, once had to draw water from a large plastic tank in his yard because his water pipes were clogged with sediment from Cabot’s nearby drilling operation. But Teel, who will have at least three new wells running under his land, said he’s satisfied it will be done safely this time.

“It’s doing a good thing for the country to supply the energy we need so we don’t have to get it from overseas,” he said. “These people who hate us for this, they should be thanking us when they turn on their heat and stove.”

The public water system Coterra agreed to pay for is still years away from being operational, and Pennsylvania American Water Co. – which agreed to build and operate the water line – faces numerous obstacles as it tries to meet a 2027 deadline.

It’s seeking a place away from the region’s dense network of gas wells, pipelines and other infrastructure, no easy task in Susquehanna County, which has over 2,000 gas wells, more than anywhere else in Pennsylvania. Then the utility needs to coax property owners to allow site access. The utility says it’s identified three potential locations for a new public water well.

“We are confident that a water system is feasible in this area and will move ahead addressing the challenges and completing this project,” said Susan Turcmanovich, a spokesperson for Pennsylvania American.

Switzer has her doubts, calling the planned water line “imaginary” and “pretend.”

The retired schoolteacher had been at Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro’s side when — as the state's attorney general — he traveled to Susquehanna County to announce the Coterra plea deal and water line. Shapiro praised the agreement with Coterra as a good outcome for residents who were unable to use their well water. Switzer followed Shapiro to the podium and praised him as “the people's lawyer.”

More than a year later, she denounces Shapiro and said she would never have agreed to speak in support of the deal if she had known about the DEP's decision to allow Coterra to resume drilling.

“I was played a fool,” said Switzer, who will have a gas well running under her land. “This was the most egregious betrayal I’ve experienced in all of the gas wars I’ve been in.”

The attorney general’s office said last year it plays no role in DEP’s regulatory decisions, nor does it share confidential information about criminal investigations with the environmental agency.

But Democratic State Sen. Carolyn Comitta, who recently visited Dimock in her capacity as minority chair of the Senate environmental committee, said she was “shocked and dismayed” when regulators gave permission for Coterra to return to Dimock.

“I’m not sure the moratorium should have been lifted at all,” she said. “There needs to be some leverage to make sure that clean water is is provided to the people who have been suffering all of these years.”

On Tuesday, the governor's spokesperson, Manuel Bonder, said Shapiro “will never forget the people of Dimock,” and is working to get the public water line built “as quickly as possible.”

Shapiro, as attorney general, “secured a historic settlement for Pennsylvanians living in Dimock," Bonder said. “The governor and his administration have been working aggressively to make good on these commitments.”

Hubble Telescope captures a galaxy's 'forbidden' light in stunning new image

Samantha Mathewson
Tue, December 19, 2023 

The spiral galaxy MCG-01-24-014 is located 275 million light-years from Earth. Seen face-on, the galaxy has two prominent, well-defined spiral arms and an energetic glowing core known as an active galactic nucleus. .

The "forbidden" light of a distant spiral galaxy shines brightly in a new image from the Hubble Space Telescope.

Located about 275 million light-years from Earth, the galaxy, called MCG-01-24-014, has two prominent, well-defined spiral arms and an energetic glowing core known as an active galactic nucleus (AGN). The galaxy is seen face-on with its arms creating a nearly perfect circular shape.

MCG-01-24-014 is classified as a Type-2 Seyfert galaxy, which is one of the two largest groups of active galaxies scientists know of, along with quasars. Seyfert galaxies exhibit a characteristic bright core, but are less detectable when compared to quasars — whose incredibly luminous AGNs can outshine the entire host galaxies within which they reside, according to a statement from the European Space Agency (ESA).

Related: The best Hubble Space Telescope images of all time!

Seyfert galaxies can also be further categorized based on the intensity of light being emitted from their active cores. Depending on the wavelengths of light, or spectra, Seyfert galaxies are classified as either Type-1 or Type-2. The latter emit spectral lines associated with so-called "forbidden" emissions, given they should not exist according to certain rules of quantum physics.

"To understand why emitted light from a galaxy could be considered forbidden, it helps to understand why spectra exist in the first place," ESA officials said in the statement. "Spectra look the way they do because certain atoms and molecules will absorb and emit light very reliably at very specific wavelengths."

Electrons — the tiny particles that orbit the nuclei of atoms — lose or gain specific amounts of energy, which correspond to certain light wavelengths being absorbed or emitted. However, certain spectral emission lines are considered to be "forbidden" because they are observed in space but do not occur under normal conditions on Earth.

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"Quantum physics is complex, and some of the rules used to predict it use assumptions that suit laboratory conditions here on Earth," ESA officials said in the statement. "Under those rules, this emission is 'forbidden' — so improbable that it’s disregarded. But in space, in the midst of an incredibly energetic galactic core, those assumptions don’t hold anymore, and the ‘forbidden’ light gets a chance to shine out towards us."

Indeed, the bright light from MCG-01-24-014 shines radiantly in the new Hubble photo, which was taken using the telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). The spiral galaxy appears in the center of the image, with two large bright stars in the foreground, one blue and one red, positioned directly above the galaxy itself. Several more distant galaxies are scattered across the otherwise pitch black backdrop of space. ESA released the new Hubble photo online on Dec. 18.

DNA sleuths solve mystery of the 2,000-year old corpse

Pallab Ghosh - BBC Science correspondent
Tue, December 19, 2023 

DNA analysis showed that this young man travelled to Cambridgeshire from the furthest reaches of the Roman Empire 2,000 years ago


How did a young man born 2,000 years ago near what is now southern Russia, end up in the English countryside?

DNA sleuths have retraced his steps while shedding light on a key episode in the history of Roman Britain.

Research shows that the skeleton found in Cambridgeshire is of a man from a nomadic group known as Sarmatians.

It is the first biological proof that these people came to Britain from the furthest reaches of the Roman empire and that some lived in the countryside.

The remains were discovered during excavations to improve the A14 road between Cambridge and Huntingdon.

The scientific techniques used will help reveal the usually untold stories of ordinary people behind great historical events.

They include reading the genetic code in fossilised bone fragments that are hundreds of thousands of years old, which shows an individual's ethnic origin.

Gold coin proves 'fake' Roman emperor was real

Dr Marina Silva extracted the ancient DNA and then made sense of its genetic code

Archaeologists discovered a complete, well-preserved skeleton of a man, they named Offord Cluny 203645 - a combination of the Cambridgeshire village he was found in and his specimen number. He was buried by himself without any personal possessions in a ditch, so there was little to go on to establish his identity.

Dr Marina Silva of the Ancient Genomics Laboratory at the Francis Crick Institute, in London, extracted and decoded Offord's ancient DNA from a tiny bone taken from his inner ear, which was the best preserved part of the entire skeleton.

"This is not like testing the DNA of someone who is alive," she explained.

"The DNA is very fragmented and damaged. However, we were able to (decode) enough of it.

"The first thing we saw was that genetically he was very different to the other Romano-British individuals studied so far."

The latest ancient DNA analysis methods are now able to flesh out the human stories behind events that, until recently, have been reconstructed only by documents and archaeological evidence.

These largely tell the tales of the wealthy and powerful.

Map of the Roman Empire at the start of the 3rd century AD and the areas of in the Middle East inhabited by the Sarmatians

The latest research is a detective story which uses cutting edge forensic science to unravel the mystery of an ordinary person - a young man buried in a ditch in Cambridgeshire between 126 and 228 AD, during the Roman occupation of Britain.

At first, archaeologists thought Offord to be an unremarkable discovery of a local man. But DNA analysis at Dr Silva's lab showed that he was from the furthest reaches of the Roman Empire, an area that is currently southern Russia, Armenia, and Ukraine.

The analysis showed him to be a Sarmatian, who are Iranian-speaking people, renowned for their horse-riding skills.

So how did he end up in a sleepy backwater of the empire so far from home?

To find the answers, a team from the archaeology department of Durham University used another exciting analysis technique to examine his fossilised teeth, which have chemical traces of what he ate.

Analysis of his teeth showed that his diet had gradually changed since the age of five

Teeth develop over time, so just like tree rings, each layer records a snapshot of the chemicals that surrounded them at that moment in time.

The analysis showed that until the age of six he ate millets and sorghum grains, known scientifically as C4 crops, which are plentiful in the region where Sarmatians were known to have lived.

But over time, analysis showed a gradual decrease in his consumption of these grains and more wheat, found in western Europe, according to Prof Janet Montgomery.

"The (analysis) tells us that he, and not his ancestors, made the journey to Britain. As he grew up, he migrated west, and these plants disappeared from his diet."

A scene depicting the defeat of the Sarmatian army by Roman forces in 175 AD

Historical records indicate that Offord could have been a cavalry man's son, or possibly his slave. They show that around the time he lived, a unit of the Sarmatian cavalry incorporated into the Roman army was posted to Britain.

The DNA evidence confirms this picture, according to Dr Alex Smith of MOLA Headland Infrastructure, the company that led the excavation.

"This is the first biological evidence," he told BBC News.

"The availability of these DNA and chemical analysis techniques means that we can now ask different questions and look at how societies formed, their make-up and how they evolved in the Roman period.

"It suggests that there was much greater movement, not just in the cities but also the countryside."

The remains were discovered as part of excavations undertaken as part of the A14 road improvement scheme between Cambridge and Huntingdon

Dr Pontus Skoglund, who heads the ancient genomics laboratory at the Crick, told BBC News that the new technology is transforming our understanding of the past.

"The main impact of ancient DNA to date has been improving our understanding of the Stone and Bronze Ages, but with better techniques, we are also starting to transform our understanding of the Roman and later periods."

The details have been published in the journal, Current Biology.

Follow Pallab on X, formally known as Twitter.

World's oldest known fort was constructed by hunter-gatherers 8,000 years ago in Siberia

Jennifer Nalewicki
Tue, December 19, 2023 

An aerial view of the remnants of a fort in Siberia. .

Hunter-gatherers built the oldest known fort in the world about 8,000 years ago in Siberia, a new study finds.

Archaeologists have long associated fortresses with permanent agricultural settlements. However, this cluster of fortified structures reveals that prehistoric groups were constructing protective edifices much earlier than originally thought.

The new research rewrites our understanding of early human societies, according to the study, published Dec. 1 in the journal Antiquity.

These hunter-gatherers "defy conventional stereotypes that depict such societies as basic and nomadic, unveiling their capacity to construct intricate structures," study co-author Tanja Schreiber, an archaeologist at Free University of Berlin, told Live Science in an email.

Located along the Amnya River in western Siberia, remains of the Amnya fort include roughly 20 pit-house depressions scattered across the site, which is divided into two sections: Amnya I and Amnya II. Radiocarbon dating confirmed that the settlement was first inhabited during the Mesolithic, or Middle Stone Age, according to the study.

When constructed, each pit house would have been protected by earthen walls and wooden palisades — two construction elements that suggest "advanced agricultural and defensive capabilities" by the inhabitants, the archaeologists said in a statement.

Related: Prehistoric population once lived in Siberia but mysteriously vanished, genetic study finds

"One of the Amnya fort's most astonishing aspects is the discovery that approximately 8,000 years ago, hunter-gatherers in the Siberian Taiga built intricate defense structures," Schreiber said. "This challenges traditional assumptions that monumental constructions were solely the work of agricultural communities."

It's unknown what triggered the need for these fortified structures in the first place, but the strategic location overlooking the river would have not only been an ideal lookout point for potential threats but also allowed hunter-gatherers to keep tabs on their fishing and hunting grounds, the researchers noted.

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It's also a mystery who ordered the fort's construction.

"It remains uncertain whether these constructions were commissioned by those in authority or if the entire community collaborated in constructing them for the purpose of protecting people or valuables," Schreiber said. "Ethnohistorical records offer a nuanced comprehension of these forts, disclosing various potential reasons for fortifying residences."

Ancient forts were built for a number of reasons, according to these records, "such as securing possessions or individuals, handling armed conflicts, addressing imbalances in attacker-defender ratios, thwarting raids and functioning as elaborate signals by influential chiefs," Schreiber said.

Researchers Test 2,400-Year-Old Leather and Realize It's Made of Human Skin

Isaac Schultz
Wed, December 20, 2023 

Leather samples, including human skin, from Scythian sites in Ukraine.


Scythians in modern-day Ukraine made leather out of human skin, a team of researchers has determined, likely as a macabre trophy item. The discovery affirms a claim by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, who wrote extensively on the Scythian way of life.

In their work, the researchers use paleoproteomics to establish the sources of leather found on 14 different Scythian sites in southern Ukraine. The manifold sources—sheep, goat, cattle, horse, and yes, human—suggest that the equestrian steppe groups had a sophisticated knowledge of leatherworking. The team’s research was published last week in PLOS One.

Their weapon of choice on foot was the battle-ax, Herodotus added, and archaeological evidence suggests that the Scythians adored their horses. As the researchers noted, Herodotus detailed stories of Scythians drinking the blood of the defeated, using severed heads as a bargaining token for booty, and sewing together scalps to make clothing. Importantly for this line of research, Herodotus also said that “Many too take off the skin, nails and all, from their dead enemies’ right hands, and make coverings for their quivers.”


A silver bowl and golden cone from Scythian burials depicting leather garments.

The fur samples were identified as red fox and animals in the cat and squirrel families. The team could not get a taxonomic ID on 26% of the samples they identified, but the majority of the identified samples were likely goat (C. hircus.) The runner-up was sheep leather (~19%), while the other leather sources were roughly evenly represented in the samples. Two of the leather samples were from horse, and two—probably the reason you’re here—were human skin.

Scrutiny of the human leather made the team conclude that the skin bits were crafted on the top parts of their respective quivers; the rest of the quivers were made from animal leather. But even the animal leather quivers used a combination of different skins in their creation; the team posits that “each archer made their own quiver using the materials available at the moment.”

Scythians’ prowess on battlefields didn’t get in the way of a good time: the British Museum notes that various Greek authors documented a heavy drinking culture among the Scythians, and Herodotus even detailed a sort of ancient hot box (until now I didn’t know the word ‘weed’ shows up on the British Museum website).

New research continues to reshape the modern image of Scythians. They were much more than fearsome nomadic warriors. In 2021, a different team studied isotopes in tooth enamel from sites across Ukraine to understand the diet and range of ancient people. Those scientists concluded that only a small subset of people that lived in Scythian times were leading heavily nomadic lifestyles.

Even if only a few of these ancient warriors used human skin for their quivers, the work substantiates one of Herodotus’ more metal claims about the Scythians. Whether any of the rumored clothing sewn from scalps will ever be recovered is another matter.

A Staggering Excavation Has Rewritten the Fall of the Roman Empire
Tim Newcomb
Tue, December 19, 2023 

This ‘Backwater’ Roman Town Outlived the Empire

Silvia Otte - Getty Images

A 13-year archeological excavation has shown that what was once believed a backwater town for the Roman Empire lasted far longer than originally believed.

Interamna Lirenas was a thriving town well into the 3rd century AD.

A geophysical survey has allowed researchers to build a highly detailed image of the town’s layout, with an impressive list of urban features.

Interamna Lirenas has turned out to be far more than a “backwater town” of the Roman Empire. According to a published study in Roman Urbanism in Italy, this central Italian town thrived well beyond previous belief, using its impressive urban features and forward-thinking design to stave off the effects of the empire’s collapse well into the 3rd century AD.

“We started with a site so unpromising that no one had ever tried to excavate it,” Alessandro Launaro, the study’s author and Interamna Lirenas Project lead at the University of Cambridge’s Classics Faculty, said in a statement. “That’s very rare in Italy.”

The team was astonished by what they found. From a roofed theater and market locations to warehouses and a river port, the discovery tossed aside assumptions previously held about the area and the decline of Roman Italy. It turns out that Interamna Lirenas survived for around 300 years longer than previously believed, and was a flourishing town to boot.

“There was nothing on the surface, no visible evidence of buildings, just bits of broken pottery,” Launaro said. “But what we discovered wasn’t a backwater, far from it. We found a thriving town adapting to every challenge thrown at it for 900 years.”

The team of archaeologists used magnetic and ground-penetrating radar to survey roughly 60 acres of mostly open fields. They then launched a series of targeted excavations to unearth the history. “We’re not saying that this town was special, it’s far more exciting than that,” Launaro sadi. “We think many other average Roman towns in Italy were just as resilient. It’s just that archaeologists have only recently begun to apply the right techniques and approaches to see this.”

The team believes that the proof is in the pottery. By focusing on common ware pottery used for cooking—and not the imported pottery that often shows evidence of high-status living—the team could better map the location and dates of citizen movement in the region. This evidence showed that instead of the town’s size peaking in the late 2nd or early 1st centuries BC, as previously believed, the town staved off decline until the later part of the 3rd century AD.

“Based on the relative lack of imported pottery,” Launaro said, “archeologists have assumed that Interamna Lirenas was a declining backwater. We now know that wasn’t the case.” Instead of favoring imported pottery, the town—which was likely home to about 2,000 residents—was busy making their own way.

Thanks to a found inscription, researchers also believe that the town was likely visited by Julius Caesar in 46 BC, likely because Intermana Lirenas was part of a regional urban network and ideally situated between a river and major road.

“This town continually played its cards right,” Launaro said, “it was always forging relations with communities between Rome and southern Italy while thriving as a trading hub.” Of course, the River Liri may have helped in that department—the town may have served as a river port. Archeologists also found evidence of warehouse measuring 131 feet by 39 feet, which was likely used to hold goods for widespread trade. There was also a temple and bath complex—one of three in the town—near the port.

“River ports didn’t just need warehouses,” Launaro said. “People spent a lot of time working and resting in the vicinity, so they needed all kinds of amenities, just like the ones we found here.”

Interamna Lirenas wasn’t just a port, though. Archaeologists also found a roofed theater, roughly 147 feet by 85 feet in size and large enough to seat 1,500 visitors. “The fact that this town went for a roofed theater, such a refined building, does not fit with a backwater in decline,” Launaro said. “This theater was a major status symbol. It displayed the town’s wealth, power, and ambition.”

The theater was in a state of growth, not decline. The team found evidence of a wealthy donor backing what was likely an improvement to the structure. And combined with other evidence, that shows that the theater was in full use throughout the life of the town.

Three bath complexes—with evidence of continued use and upkeep beyond Roman Italy’s decline—and housing that showed no signs of zoning or separation by social status further contributed to the town’s apparently thriving status. Throughout the 60 acres of their survey, the team identified 19 courtyard buildings that they believe could have been markets, guild houses, warehouses, or apartments. The archaeologists believe they found a sheep and cattle market, which would have been key to the region’s thriving wool trade.

As there was no layer of ash or evidence of a violent end to the town, Launaro believes that it was eventually abandoned as residents grew fearful of marauding armies. The end of Interamna Lirenas wasn’t as sudden or as soon as previously believed, which has now opened a new world of understanding.