Planetary Surface of Trees?
Purely hypothetical question here. Would it be feasibly possible to have a planet entirely covered in a dense network of interlocking trees?
The idea is that the trees themselves act as the 'crust' of the planet, with virtually all life living on them. The planet could be a water planet far below, allowing plenty of water for such a structure to grow, and nutrients from the animals living in the water and on the trees themselves would provide the necessary nutrients.
Is such a structure possible? If so, what would its prominent features be?
Obviously there would be a bit of a support issue, which is where the interlocking part comes from. Think along the lines of a Banyan tree. Get a big enough tree to curve with the planet, and maybe get some flotation device at the base, and I would imagine it would keep itself up. For that matter you could break it up into a bunch of small trees and have the interlocking tops form leaf 'sails' and go cruising around (that was a purely random idea off the top of my head, and not really related to this question in any way whatsoever).
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In order to get to the final state you mention, you are going to have to radically alter your initial state, which other answers hint at. Our planet's surface is mostly water, and your planet will also need this trait, but it will need to be much more evenly distributed. Instead of a few giant oceans, you need all of your water in numerous moderate-sized lakes scattered all over the surface.
Then, your planet is essentially one giant lake at the end of the pond and lake life cycle. Over the millennia, detritus from all the life living along the lake settles to the bottom. A young lake has a sand or rock bottom, older lakes have decaying matter forming a sloppy mud. At the end of the life cycle, the lake almost completely fills in; at this stage we tend to call these swamps or bogs instead of lakes.
I've been to places (within New York's Adirondacks) where you see apparently solid ground with weeds and trees and shrubs growing all around, but as you walk along the ground ripples and waves with your footsteps.
Another issue you need to overcome is climate. The scenario I describe is most prevalent in temperate climates and deciduous forest biomes. It would be very surprising to find bogs in either Svalbard or the Sahara. In other words, if there is any diversity in climate or ecosystem on your world, hallmarks of this here earth, then the house of cards will fall down. If you can hand-wave that away and have your planet be almost uniform throughout its entire pre-history and across its entire surface, it just might work.
This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/54378. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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