---
title: "A Professor’s Discovery of a Nearly 4,000-Year-Old Buried Log Suggests a New Climate Change Solution"
date: 2024-09-30T05:30:00-04:00
author: University of Maryland
canonical_url: "https://today.umd.edu/a-professors-discovery-of-a-nearly-4-000-year-old-buried-log-suggests-a-new-climate-change-solution"
section: Articles
---
# A Professor’s Discovery of a Nearly 4,000-Year-Old Buried Log Suggests a New Climate Change Solution

*September 30, 2024* — by [Emily C. Nunez](/author/emily-c-nunez)


> UMD-led Study Finds Burying Wood in Proper Conditions Prevents Greenhouse Gas Emissions

*Ning Zeng Camp Small 02152023 JC 0576 1920x1080 — Professor Ning Zeng pauses in a tangled pile of dead trees at Camp Small, a Baltimore municipal collection point for waste wood that has supplied him with logs for his climate-change mitigation experiments. Below, the nearly 4,000-year-old log he unearthed in Canada.*

A seemingly ordinary old log could help redefine strategies to tackle climate change, according to a new University of Maryland study.   
  
Professor Ning Zeng unearthed the cedar log in Quebec, Canada, and later learned the tree it came from fell some 3,775 years ago, during the days of the Babylonian Empire and China’s First Dynasty. An analysis by a team of researchers he led appeared Thursday in the journal *Science*, revealing that the log had lost less than 5% carbon dioxide from its original state, thanks to the low-permeability clay soil that covered it. It was so well-preserved, Zeng said, “You could probably make a piece of furniture out of it.”

Understanding the unique environmental factors that kept that ancient log in mint condition could help researchers perfect an emerging climate solution known as “wood vaulting,” which involves taking wood that is not commercially viable—such as trees destroyed by disease or wildfires, old furniture or unused construction materials—and burying it to stop its decomposition.


*log on red table — Photo by Mark Sherwood*




**Topics:** [Research](https://today.umd.edu/tags/research)


**Tags:** [Atmospheric and Oceanic Science](https://today.umd.edu/topic/atmospheric-and-oceanic-science), [Climate Change](https://today.umd.edu/topic/climate-change), [Research](https://today.umd.edu/topic/research)


**Units:** [College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences](https://today.umd.edu/topic/college-computer-mathematical-and-natural-sciences)