The South Pole is surrounded by a harsh and frozen landscape of all-year-long ice and snow. But, according to a new study, it’s not always been the case. In fact, it may have been totally different.
The study published in the Nature Journal was done by a team of researchers and they concluded that around 90 million years ago, the Antarctica was a swampy rainforest full of animal and plant life.
They found a well-preserved network of roots in sediment core near Pine Island Glacier. When they discovered it, they were shocked by its look.
90-Million-Old Rainforest Found under the Antarctic Ice
During the shipboard assessments, the coloration of the sediment layer caught the scientists’ attention. It was different from the above layers.
After a CT-scan, the team found that the soil was preserved well and that it contains pollen, spores, and remnants from flowering plants. Moreover, intact individual cell structures were also observed.
The scientists were amazed of seeing well-preserved diverse fossil pollen and other remains from plants in a sediment deposited around 90 million years ago.
According to Ulrich Salzmann, a co-author of the study and professor paleoecologist at the Northumbria University, the coast of West Antarctica probably once had a dense rainforest with a lot of tree ferns and conifers.
He compared it with ones in New Zealand today.
During the cretaceous period, when the dinosaurs were dominant, the global temperatures were much higher than the ones today and the sea levels too.
The sea temperatures were thought to be as high as 95 degrees F; however, little was known about the South Pole.
The team studied the soil and concluded heavy rain evidence and an annual average temperature of 54 degrees F and a summer average temperature of 66 degrees F.
They further explained that these temperatures are only possible with dense vegetation and low ice sheets nearby. And, newer findings point out that the CO2 levels in the atmosphere were higher than previously thought.
Still, a major question remains- if Antarctica was really so warm, what was the reason for the dramatic cooling down and allowing hard ice sheets to form?
Co-author and AWI climate modeler Dr. Gerrit Lohmann said that they couldn’t find a satisfactory answer to this question.
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