A Blog by John Halkett

Tag: Chile

Antarctica forests

Just back from southern South America and Antarctica having a firsthand look at climate change impacts.
With a surface area in excess of 14 million square kilometres Antarctica is larger than Europe, and almost twice the size of Australia. As much as 98 per cent of the continent’s surface is covered in thick, compacted ice, reaching an average depth of over a two kilometres.
Recent scientific discoveries suggest that this ‘forgotten continent’ – sometimes nicknamed the Great White Desert – may in fact have once hosted forests.
Sarah Feakins, a biogeochemist from the University of Southern … Read more “Antarctica forests”

Kauri and monkey puzzle tree

I have always had a soft spot for Agathis trees. This magnificent planted Queensland kauri (Agathis robusta) is adjacent to the beach on eastern Sydney where I occasionally go for a quick swim before work. It has to be well over a hundred years old – perhaps two hundred.
Together Agathis and Araucaria form the Southern Hemisphere conifer family of trees Araucariaceae. Agathis – a genus of thirteen species is generally known as kauri, after the Maori name for the New Zealand species Agathis australis.
Although the genus extends as far south as the warm temperate forests of northern New Zealand, … Read more “Kauri and monkey puzzle tree”

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