Ancient Landscape Revealed
In his classic novella, In the Mountains of Madness, H. P. Lovecraft told the tale of scientists in Antarctica accidentally waking deadly beings from far in Earth’s past. Today, real scientists continue to explore our geological history in the depths of the antarctic ice. So far, they have not found any Elder Beings or cosmic horrors. However, new data gathered from ice penetrating radar has discovered a remarkably well preserved landscape over 14 million years old!
The lead author of this new study, Stewart Jamieson, has said that “the land underneath the East Antarctic Ice Sheet is less well known than the surface of Mars.” This land is exactly what his team set out to explore. By using satellite data and radar, his team mapped out 12,300 square miles of land underneath the ice sheet—an area larger than the state of New Jersey!
Underneath the ice, the researchers found the imprint of many hills and valleys throughout the landscape. This indicates that the terrain must have been shaped by flowing rivers long before the buildup of the ice sheet we know today. The ancient land would have looked to us like the modern day hills and valleys of North Wales
The most interesting finding of this expedition was not the land itself, but the way it has been preserved. Because of the varying climates across geological history, Jamieson explained, usually there is a layer of liquid water between the ice sheets and the bed underneath. This water wears away at the terrain, erasing all record of the land that once existed. However, in the section surveyed by the team from the University of Durham, there was no liquid water to be found. The record of the landscape underneath was perfectly preserved.
We know that in the 34 million years it took for the East Antarctic ice sheet to form, there was considerable fluctuation. Parts of this land they have surveyed would have been exposed at various points in the ice sheet’s history. The fact that it has been so well preserved indicates that these fluctuations happened quickly.
Why is this important to study? The land underneath the ice influences how the ice sheet has flowed over time. Understanding how the ice has flowed in the past can give us clues to how it will continue to shape in the future. In fact, when this landscape originally formed, Earth experienced temperatures between 3 and 7 degrees higher than today, which the climate is on track to return to. Knowledge of Earth’s landscape millions of years ago could give us a clear picture of how it will look in the future.
Is Antarctica hiding ancient and possibly alien creatures that defy comprehension? Probably not! Still, it has preserved an amazing relic of our planet’s past, and possibly, a clue to its future.