The peculiarity of the amazing discovery of researchers has been named
Scientists have discovered an ancient landscape in an area on Earth “less known than the surface of Mars.” An ancient landscape hidden beneath the East Antarctic ice sheet for at least 14 million years has been discovered using satellite data and aircraft equipped with ice-penetrating radar.
Researchers used remote sensing techniques to map 32,000 square kilometers of land — an area about the same size as Belgium. According to a study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, they discovered a landscape shaped by rivers before the formation of the East Antarctic continental ice sheet that once resembled the hills and valleys of modern-day North Wales.
CNN reports, scientists wondered aims to map the history of the ice sheet and how it has evolved over time, and understanding what the land looked like before it was hidden under layers of ice is an important chapter in that story, explained study lead author Stuart Jamieson, professor of geography. Faculty of Durham University.
“The ground beneath the East Antarctic ice sheet is less well known than the surface of Mars,” Jamieson said in a statement. “And that’s a problem because this landscape controls how ice spreads in Antarctica, and it controls how it might respond to past, present and future climate change.”
The well-preserved nature of the landscape makes it particularly special. Jamieson said it's rare to find relatively unaltered landscapes beneath a continental ice sheet—usually the movement of ice as it fluctuates in size and shifts, eroding and eroding the relict landscape.
Understanding why this particular ancient landscape has persisted in largely intact, could help scientists better predict the future dynamics of the East Antarctic ice sheet, which contains the equivalent of about 60 meters of potential sea level rise as the planet warms.
According to the study, Earth's climate is approaching temperatures typical of the times when the landscape likely emerged 34 to 14 million years ago, which were 3 to 7 degrees Celsius warmer than today.
The East Antarctic ice sheet first formed about 34 million years ago, but it has subsequently changed in size, sometimes exposing the underlying land. Jamieson said the preservation of the landscape implies that temperatures at the base of the ice sheet were very cold and stable in these parts of the ancient terrain, despite some intervening periods of climate warming.
“In other areas we would actually expect that there will be liquid water right between the ice and the layer, which helps grind the material. There is no such thing in our region. So that partly explains how something could survive for so long,” Jamieson explained in a telephone interview.
Geophysical data collected by scientists has provided clues to what lies beneath 2 kilometers of ice , notes CNN.
“The data effectively measures very small changes in the shape of the top of the ice, and basically when we look at it and draw it, it looks like a series of interconnected valleys that should be underneath the ice sheet. We're essentially seeing a ghost of this landscape from the top,” Jamieson said.
The research team doesn't know what plants and wildlife may have once inhabited the area, but the presence of rivers suggests the presence of running water. water, which makes it very likely that there will be vegetation on the landscape.