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  • 2021-12-23 (xsd:date)
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  • These are mountains and rock formations, not tree stumps (en)
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  • Facebook posts claiming to show huge stumps from ancient trees have been shared multiple times online alongside a question asking: Who cut them and why? The claim is false; the images taken in different parts of the world show various mountains and not the remains of trees felled in ancient times. On December 13, a Facebook post (archived here ) shared four images of stumps with the caption: Thousands of years ago there were giant trees of Silicon whose remains are found in different parts of the planet. Looking at the trunk of these large petrified trees, we can imagine how large these mother trees were. The post was shared more than 700 times before it was deleted. A screenshot of the false Facebook post, taken on December 22, 2021 The same posts were shared on Facebook here , here , here and here . We conducted a reverse image search on each picture and located them in different parts of the world. The claim that these photos show tree stumps is false. Mountains, not trees The first aerial image of what appears to be a brown stump with roots leading into the ground is in fact a guyot, an underwater mountain in Ethiopia’s Afar depression. The picture is available on the stock photo site, Alamy . Guyot. Aerial photograph of a guyot in the Afar Depression, Ethiopia, Africa. The Awash River is seen across top left. Guyots are underwater volcanoes that have flat tops due to wave erosion. The presence of a guyot in the Afar Depression shows that the area was once beneath the Red Sea, reads the picture’s description. A screenshot showing a guyot in Ethiopia on Alamy website, taken on December 23, 2021 The second and fourth images – displaying side and aerial views respectively – show a flat-topped mountain in Venezuela called Cerro Autana (see here and here ). According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), it is made of quartz and sandstone. Screenshots of Cerro Autana on the Alamy website, taken on December 23, 2021 In 1978, Cerro Autana was declared a natural monument in Venezuela. A screenshot showing Cerro Autana, taken on December 23, 2021 The final image is an aerial view of a rock formation located in the US state of Wyoming named Devils Tower , which was declared the first-ever US National Monument in 1906. A screenshot showing Devils Tower, taken from Shutterstock on December 23, 2021 The US National Park Service explains the geological origins of this natural monument on its web page for Devils Tower, stating that it is composed of intrusive igneous rock that is volcanic in origin. Geologists agree that Devils Tower began as magma, or molten rock buried beneath the Earth’s surface. What they cannot agree upon are the processes by which the magma cooled to form the Tower, or its relationship to the surrounding geology of the area, reads an article on the NPS website. (en)
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