Mythologies say that beyond AntarcticaWhere the world ends, there is a huge wall of ice, separating life as we know it from green valleys and hidden hills.
Something like this, but in scientific and more realistic proportions, have discovered researchers from Durham University, who discovered a vast hidden landscape of hills and valleys formed by ancient rivers, which remained “frozen in time” under Antarctic ice for millions of years.
Until now, this landscape has been hidden from human presence for 34 million years.
Stuart Jamieson, a glaciologist at Britain’s Durham University and lead author of the study, told AFP: “This is an uncharted landscape: no one has seen it.”
“The interesting thing is that it was hiding in plain sight,” Jamieson added, pointing out that this area under the East Antarctic ice sheet is less known than the surface Mars.
Using satellite imagery and radioelectric surveys, scientists began to visualize this large 32,000 square kilometer area, which was home to trees, forests and possibly animals. But then ice appeared and she was “frozen in time,” Jamieson explains in the journal Nature.
Jamieson emphasizes that the landscape is hundreds of kilometers from the edge of the ice, so any possible impact would be “very far away.”
He added that cause for hope is the fact that ice retreat during past warming periods – such as in the Pliocene between 3 and 4.5 million years ago – did not expose the landscape.
Source: Digital Trends
I am Garth Carter and I work at Gadget Onus. I have specialized in writing for the Hot News section, focusing on topics that are trending and highly relevant to readers. My passion is to present news stories accurately, in an engaging manner that captures the attention of my audience.
