Ghost Forests Emerging on East Coast Beaches (w music)

Why are ancient tree stumps suddenly appearing on beaches along the U.S. East Coast?

These are called ghost forests — remains of forests that once stood far inland.

They’re being exposed from New Jersey to the Carolinas as shorelines rapidly erode.

Rising sea levels push saltwater inland, killing trees and burying them in sediment.

Powerful storms then rip away the sand, uncovering what was buried for centuries.

In some places, the stumps only appear after major storms, then vanish again

as sand slowly returns. Some of these trees are hundreds to thousands of years old,

preserved in oxygen-poor mud. When these forests were alive, coastlines sat miles