Frozen landscape discovered 14 million years ago in Antarctica

A wide view It was recently discovered that Antarctica has been covered in ice for at least 14 million yearsthrough a study of satellite data and radar images. The emergence of this primitive scenario was made possible by the effects of global warming on the so-called East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS).

The study authors, led by geographers at Durham University in the United Kingdom, combined geospatial information with echo sounding techniques to map 32,000 square kilometers of ancient valleys and mountain ranges beneath the EAIS.

According to the paper’s first author, Stewart Jamieson, “The land beneath the East Antarctic Ice Sheet is less known than the surface of Mars.” The geography professor says in a statement that this could be a problem: “because this landscape controls how ice flows in Antarctica and how it may respond to past, present and future climate change,” he concludes.

What does the frozen green field in Antarctica look like?

At first, the team was only detailing a small section of the area “to see what it could tell us about the evolution of the landscape and the ice sheet,” according to Jamieson. But what they found was this Primitive land surface that was never eroded by the ice sheet, but instead formed by rivers before the appearance of ice.

In total, three blocks of plateaus were identified, divided by deep U-shaped valleys, shaped by the movement of rivers over time. Researchers estimate that these waterways “excavated” the hillsides even before the appearance of the supercontinent’s first glaciers. Gondwana was still intact.

Jamieson believes that although “this part of the ice sheet may have retreated during warm times in the past,” this specific area has remained untouched throughout this entire period, providing important clues as to how the ice sheet may respond to continued warming in the future.

There may be other landscapes beneath Antarctic ice

Although the river valleys and bare plateaus are relatively safe about 350 kilometers from the edge of the ice sheet, Researchers warn that this could change if temperatures rise by 3° to 7°C in the future.As occurred during the formation of the EAIS.

Once this hidden but “clearly visible” ancient landscape is discovered, the authors suggest there may be “similar, as yet undiscovered, ancient landscapes beneath the EAIS.” “How have the ice sheet and underlying landscape changed over its long history?”

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