A 3,775-year-old log unearthed beneath a farm in Canada may hold the key to combating climate change by offering a method to lock carbon away for thousands of years, according to a study published on Thursday. The discovery provides critical data on preserving wood in a way that could help slow rising global temperatures.

Ning Zeng, a climate scientist from the University of Maryland, and his team made the accidental discovery while conducting research on methods to sequester carbon. "This single data point offers valuable insight into the conditions needed to preserve wood for millennia," said Zeng. The wood was found in a clay soil environment, which may have contributed to its preservation.

The study proposes a deceptively simple solution to the challenge of carbon sequestration: burying wood underground. This method could be a cost-effective and scalable alternative to current carbon-capture technologies that rely on expensive and energy-intensive machinery. By entombing wood in the right soil conditions, scientists believe it could delay decomposition and lock in human-generated CO2 for potentially thousands of years.

Forests absorb significant amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2), but much of it is quickly released back into the atmosphere through natural decay processes. Even wood, which decomposes more slowly, typically breaks down within decades. However, Zeng’s research suggests that burying wood under certain conditions could prevent this decomposition and provide a long-term solution for carbon storage.

In 2013, Zeng and his colleagues, including agronomist Ghislain Poisson from Quebec’s agricultural ministry, began testing the idea by entombing wood under clay soil in a field near Montreal. While conducting their experiment, they uncovered the ancient log, which had been preserved remarkably well at a depth of 6½ feet. The discovery offered unexpected evidence that the concept could work.

“This accidental find really gave us the proof we needed,” said Zeng. The study highlights the potential of this simple approach to address one of the world’s most pressing environmental challenges: slowing climate change by keeping carbon out of the atmosphere.