A college student's new discovery of fossils collected in the East Antarctic suggests that the frozen polar cap was once a much balmier place.
The well-preserved fossils of ostracods, a type of small crustaceans, came from the Dry Valleys region of Antarctica's Transantarctic Mountains and date from about 14 million years ago. The fossils were a rare find, showing all of the ostracods' soft anatomy in 3-D.
The fossils were discovered by Richard Thommasson during screening of the sediment in research team member Allan Ashworth's lab at North Dakota State University.
Because ostracods couldn't survive in the current Antarctic climate, their presence suggests that the southern-most continent hasn't always been as frigid as it is today.
"Present conditions in this Antarctic region show mean annual temperatures of minus 25 degrees C (Celsius) [minus 13 degrees Fahrenheit]," said Mark Williams of the University of Leicester, co-author with Ashworth of the fossil-find report in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. "These are impossible conditions to sustain a lake fauna with ostracods."
The authors think the ostracods and the habitat they lived in were the last vestiges of a tundra ecosystem, similar to those found in Patagonia, that once thrived in Antarctic coastal regions, before an intense period of cooling gave rise to the Antarctic environment we see today.
The well-preserved fossils of ostracods, a type of small crustaceans, came from the Dry Valleys region of Antarctica's Transantarctic Mountains and date from about 14 million years ago. The fossils were a rare find, showing all of the ostracods' soft anatomy in 3-D.
The fossils were discovered by Richard Thommasson during screening of the sediment in research team member Allan Ashworth's lab at North Dakota State University.
Because ostracods couldn't survive in the current Antarctic climate, their presence suggests that the southern-most continent hasn't always been as frigid as it is today.
"Present conditions in this Antarctic region show mean annual temperatures of minus 25 degrees C (Celsius) [minus 13 degrees Fahrenheit]," said Mark Williams of the University of Leicester, co-author with Ashworth of the fossil-find report in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. "These are impossible conditions to sustain a lake fauna with ostracods."
The authors think the ostracods and the habitat they lived in were the last vestiges of a tundra ecosystem, similar to those found in Patagonia, that once thrived in Antarctic coastal regions, before an intense period of cooling gave rise to the Antarctic environment we see today.
-
- groups:
- Green, Earth and Science, Science
-
- tags:
- Green, Earth and Science, Science, Antarctica, 3 more + add
-
-
-
-
- mundosanto
- added this
-
Umm... I was taught in elementary school that Antarctica, as well as the other continents, used to be part of a huge landmass. And as a result, the landmass that is now Antarctica was much farther North, and probably much warmer.
Maybe I'm not quite seeing the importance of this discovery, or maybe I'm missing something that makes this discovery really interesting and new. However, I don't really see how discovering a fossil of a warmer climate life form is of great significance on a landmass that was believed to be warmer in the past then it is now.
-
-
-
-
- Varex_Sythe
- 1 year ago
-
keep browsing
more like this
