Buried Under 2 Kilometers of Antarctic Ice, Scientists Find a 34-Million-Year-Old Lost World
upstart writes:
Beneath the thick ice of East Antarctica lies a hidden world-untouched for over 34 million years. This frozen expanse, more than 10 million square kilometers wide, has long concealed a forgotten landscape. Now,using cutting-edge satellite tools, researchers have pulled back the curtain on a time when Antarctica teemed with life.
A team led by Stewart Jamieson at Durham University made the discovery with help from RADARSAT, a Canadian satellite system. The technology allowed them to detect small changes in the ice surface, revealing the shape of the land buried below. What they found was extraordinary: an ancient river-carved terrain about the size of Wales, locked under nearly two kilometers of ice.
"It's like uncovering a time capsule," Jamieson said. The untouched condition of the landscape points to its extreme age. Preserved beneath the ice sheet's crushing weight, the land remained unchanged since long before glaciation began. This hidden world dates back to a period when Antarctica was not the icy desert we know today.
Back then, the continent was part of Gondwana-a supercontinent shared with Africa, South America, and Australia. Instead of ice, Antarctica featured flowing rivers, forests, and roaming dinosaurs. That changed about 20 million years ago when glaciers took hold, freezing the region's history beneath a growing sheet of ice.
The ancient landscape now uncovered is more than a prehistoric curiosity. It helps scientists understand how Antarctica has changed over millions of years. These findings could also shed light on how the ice sheet might respond to rising global temperatures in the future.
The research also opens a new window into how rivers once shaped the bedrock before the climate shifted. It suggests that massive ice coverage can preserve entire ecosystems in place, offering a rare glimpse into ancient environments that no longer exist. The survival of these features helps scientists map how Earth's surface responds to extreme changes in climate.
With every pass of the satellite, new details emerged. What started as faint surface cues turned into a clear picture of valleys, ridges, and channels below. As technology improves, more hidden corners of the Earth's past may be revealed. But for now, this glimpse beneath the Antarctic ice connects us to a greener, wilder world long gone-but not forgotten.
"We've had a longtime interest in, effectively, the shape of the land beneath the ice sheet," Jamieson said. "The implication is that this must be a very old landscape carved by rivers before the ice sheet itself grew."
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