Greenland reveals its true colours

The surface of most of Greenland is entombed by a thick ice cap, but some time during the past 800,000 years, the southern part of the island actually lived up to its name. It was covered by a thick, verdant boreal forest similar to that now found in many regions of Canada.

The Greenland forest contained pine trees, yews and aspens, where a profusion of insect life - including beetles, flies, moths and butterflies - flitted among the plants.

The surprising discovery, made by an international team of scientists (including some from Canada) and outlined in the current issue of the journal Science, was based on an analysis of tiny fragments of DNA preserved in ice drawn from cores drilled nearly to the bottom of Greenland's ice sheet.

The finding suggests that at some point in the relatively recent past, Greenland had to be far warmer than it is now, and a substantial part of the island was forested, unlike today, when about 85 per cent is ice-covered and much of the rest is inhospitable Arctic tundra.

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