2-million-year-old 'mummy trees' reveal harsh climate

. He and his colleagues flew back in the summer of 2010 by hopping from city to city, and then switched to a Twin Otter light aircraft before heading to the site in a helicopter.

Getting up there
The researchers were racing against time, because they had a planned field season of just two weeks. But foggy weather kept them grounded in Nunavut, Canada, for a week, which left them with just four days by the time they reached Ellesmere Island National Park.

"We spent our time just running around," Barker told LiveScience. "We pulled long days."

They managed to gather what they considered as representative samples of the mummified tree branches, roots and leaves, as well as larger quantities to examine back in the lab. But they also hope to go back with a broader group of experts and spend at least one month on-site.

Chemical and DNA analyses of the tree mummy samples is ongoing as the researchers try to better understand the conditions at the time. Eventually, they hope to run the story of what happened to the trees in reverse and figure out how the Arctic environment will adapt to the warming world of today.

"I think there's so much work that can be done here, and we want to do that," Barker said.

You can follow LiveScience Senior Writer Jeremy Hsu on Twitter @ScienceHsu.

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