Uprooted trees are gold mines for people interested in finding objects like arrowheads or other historic artifacts. It's a natural time capsule. The ground un

Uprooted trees are gold mines for people interested in finding objects like arrowheads or other historic artifacts. It's a natural time capsule. The ground under the tree is stabilized for the duration of the tree's life, effectively snapshotting its contents. The first time someone explained this to me while on a hike, as they excitedly dug through a mess of exposed tree roots, was one of those rare, surreal perspective-shifting moments. Suddenly I saw the forest surrounding me as a versioned filesystem of sorts, with every tree holding a snapshot of ground for its respective age beneath.