The rivers probably formed when the supercontinent Gondwana broke, separating Antarctica from Australia and India
Scientists discovered a lost landscape that was preserved under Antarctic’s ice cloak for 50 million years. They have long been giant rivers that will have helped separate Antarctica from Australia and India.
Scientists have long been intrigued and perplexed with the “flat” landscapes fragments under Antarctic’s ice sheets.
A study last week at Nature Geoscience He revealed that one of these landscapes was preserved under Antarctic’s ice cloak between 80 million and 34 million years ago.
According to the new study, these large flat surfaces sculpted by ancient rivers in the depths of the Eastern Antarctic influence the way ice currently flows through the continent.
Moreover, they will have formed when the Gondwana supercontinent broke out, Helping to separate India, Australia and Antarctica.
“This study brings together the pieces of data puzzle, to reveal the general picture: how these ancient surfaces were formed, their role in determining the current ice flow and their possible influence on the way the eastern Antarctic’s ice mant will evolve into a warming world,” he said in, in, Neil Rossa geophysicist from the University of Newcastle, in the United Kingdom, and co -author of the study.
As details in the new study, researchers used radar data from four previous studies to map the shape of the rocky bed under the ice.
“When we were examining the radar images of the sub-speed topography in this region, these extraordinarily flat surfaces began to appear on almost everywhere where we looked”, Said, in the statement, the co -author of the study Guy Paxmana polar geophysicist of the University of Durham, in the United Kingdom.
“The flat surfaces we found managed to survive relatively intact for more than 30 million years, indicating that parts of the ice cloak preserved the landscape instead of corroerem”He adds.
At the top of the flat surfaces, Antarctic ice moves very slowly. But in the depressions between them, the ice flows much faster. Melted water may have sculpted these gutters by flowing through natural depressions when the East Antarctic ice cloak expanded millions of years ago.
According to scientists, slow ice flow above the flat surfaces may still be regulating the loss of ice on the continent today.
