‘It’s resurrection’: 1,000-year-old seeds could grow ancient plants in England’s ice-age ghost ponds

An expert team are resurrecting ice age ponds and finding rare species returning from a perfect time capsule'

If you glanced into a green field and saw a yellow digger tearing into the turf, you might assume it was another site for new houses. But the two circle-shaped scars of dark soil on a Norfolk pasture are ghost ponds being brought back to life by an innovative and cheap form of nature restoration.

It looks awful now. What have they done? It's a disaster!'" says Carl Sayer, a professor of geography at UCL, who is dancing with glee around the bleak-looking, freshly dug hole. The colonisation is so quick. Within a year, it is full of water plants. Within two years, it looks like it's been there forever. It's a spectacular recovery, and you're truly recovering ancient assemblages of plants."