Sink Holes and Lost Worlds
Have scientists discovered a lost world?
I read an article today about an ancient forest that was discovered in a sinkhole in China. This immediately reminded me of the story “The Lost World” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. A movie and television series were also made based on this novel. The novelist Jules Verne also explored this concept in the story “Journey to the Centre of the Earth.”
It seems to me that writers have always been intrigued by what lay beneath the surface of the Earth and have imagined so many wondrous things in their writings. I realized that over the years humans have discovered so many lost and forgotten worlds, and I felt that there was nothing left to be revealed in our modern world. Yet, I was wrong, there are still so many amazing things waiting to be discovered by us in this world of ours, as we look towards the stars and the vast expanse of the universe.
This discovery of an ancient forest at the bottom of a sinkhole in China, which has so many undiscovered plant and animal species, untouched by human civilization could be the holy grail for scientific discoveries and open to experimentation for cures in science for known diseases and other uses.
With the hat of a storyteller on my head, my imagination will go wild. What new forms of life exist in this mysterious ancient forest? Perhaps, we have opened ourselves to danger from an unseen force, that has laid hidden for millennia, at the bottom of this secret world. Time will tell if the discovery of this ancient forest is a gift or a curse for humanity.
Ancient Forest Discovered in Chinese Sinkhole | Smithsonian
The Lost World (Doyle novel) — Wikipedia
Journey to the Center of the Earth — Wikipedia
Fascinating connection bw imagination and discovery!