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The southernmost continent is an awe-inspiring place , in the old - fashioned sense of the Book . Precipitous good deal , grind glacier and iceberg of every configuration , and a surprising kitchen stove of colors make up Antarctica ’s terrific landscape .
And because the continent is so remote and foreboding , much of this landscape painting persist unknown . With new tools and fresh expeditions , scientist are peering into Antarctica ’s nooks and crannies and even its subsurface , discover a world that seems unimaginable from more temperate climes . Here are some of the secretsAntarcticarevealed in 2019 .
A crabeater seal rests in Antarctica.
A giant and growing void
Imagine an meth cave two - third gear the area of Manhattan and nearly 1,000 pes ( 300 meters ) tall . intemperately to envision ? It ’s real , and it ’s under the Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica .
Thegap between the glacier and the bedrockbelow was break this class byNASAscientists , who say that much of the void was formed from melt that occured in the last few age . Using ice - dawn , satellite - base radio detection and ranging , they found a void that once hold 15 billion tons ( 13.6 billion measured tons ) of ice . The gap may be contributing to the glacier ’s trend and thaw , researchers reported in the journal Science Advances .
A surprising former resident
Long ago , Antarctica was a much warmer place , nursing home todinosaursand exuberant plant life life history . Even before the dinosaurs drift , an iguana - like Triassic reptile called the Antarctica home .
researcher announced the discovery of the reptile , dubbedAntarctanax shackletoni , this twelvemonth . The 250 million - year - old creature was an archosaurian , a precursor to the lineage that would furcate into dinosaurs , pterosaursand crocodilians . This animal probably grew to 4 to 5 foot ( 1.2 to 1.5 meters ) long , and scuttled around what was then the Antarctic timberland flooring .
…and a Loch Ness monster
Ancient Antarctica was also home to the world ’s heaviest elasmosaurid , a plesiosaur of the genus Aristonectes . fossilist discovered the long - make out sea brute on Antarctica ’s Seymour Island in 1989 , but they were n’t able to finish excavating the tremendous fossil until 2017 . They ultimately pull 1,760 lbs . ( 800 kg ) of fossilized bone off the island . After examining the specimen , the researchers identify the beast this year for the first time .
In life-time , theAntarctic Loch Ness monsterwould have been 36 feet ( 11 m ) long and librate in at a bulky 15 scads ( 13.4 metric tons ) . The creature survive only a few tens of chiliad of year before the Cretaceous - Paleogene extermination 66 million years ago , when an asteroid collided with Earth and wiped out the non - avian dinosaur .
A rare lava lake
In New times , Antarctica still holds surprises . Take Saunders Island , a volcanic bump in the South Sandwich Islands . The icy crag of Mount Michael , the island ’s volcanic acme , holdsone of only eight lava lakesin the world .
Scientists discover the crater lake thanks to thermal imaging from satellite data . Unlike most exposed lava on the Earth ’s open , the lake remain liquified . Its temperature in the lake contact between 1,812 and 2,334 degrees Fahrenheit ( 989 and 1,279 academic degree Celsius ) .
Upside-down rivers
Antarctica ’s ice sheets are as complex on their undersurface as they are up top . A new survey published this twelvemonth set up that enormous under - ice river of warm water supply scour the continent ’s glass shelves from below .
These ice shelf are the portion of the ice sheets that project over the sea . Scientists observed sure areas of the sheets that seemed to sag , break through and sometimes melt through year after year . They found that these areas are undermined bywarm ocean currents that flow like river , melting the ice above .
Oddly shaped icebergs
Wind and water sculpt Antarctica ’s ice into strange material body , but this takes the bar ( and kind of looks like one ): In October , scientists snapped aerial picture offloating rectangular ' bergsnear the northerly Antarctic Peninsula .
The orthogonal chunks were shards make by the calving of a Brobdingnagian iceberg , knight A68 , offthe Larsen C ice-skating rink shelfin 2017 . wearing had n’t yet had time to smooth the rectangular iceberg ' recess and unbent edges .
And ice that sings
A steady seismic hum animates Antarctica ’s water ice – all the time . Humans ca n’t get a line the 5 Heinrich Hertz frequency , but researchers picked up the hum on sensor mean to find vibration in the ice . This subsonic singing is triggered by the apparent movement of wind against the glass , the research worker reported in October . The strain change subtly when the ice melting or when wind changes the shape of snow dunes , making the sound a possible fashion to track local changes remotely .
" It ’s kind of like you ’re vaunt a champagne flute , always , on the ice-skating rink shelf , " lead field of study author Julien Chaput , a geophysicist and mathematician at Colorado State University in Fort Collins , said in a statement .
Strange particles
Antarctica ’s comparative peace of mind and smooth make it a utilitarian place for physicist to run for speedy - movingcosmic raysand elusiveelementary subatomic particle . late , though , the region ’s chalk has n’t only been absorb these particles from blank , but seemingly spit them out , too .
Researchers are n’t sure what to make of measuring from NASA ’s Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna and the IceCube lookout , both of which are designed to detect blank space - based phenomena . So far , the identity of the particles detected over Antarcticaremains a mystery story .
Extreme life
Antarctica — other thanpenguins , not much there , veracious ? Well , mayhap not . Under half a mile of internal-combustion engine just a few hundred international mile from the South Pole , bacteria fly high .
researcher pass by ecologist John Priscu at the University of Montana practice into Lake Mercer beneath the West Antarctic ice canvas andfound that it was full of life . They quantify 10,000 bacterial cells per cubic centimetre of lake water .
That is only about 1 % of the amount of Methedrine in capable - sea water , but surprising for such a moth-eaten , sunless slur . investigator say that these bacteria could provide clew about the kinds of life that might evolve on far - flung planets like Mars .
And a very deep hole
As of January 2019 , West Antarctica hosts a world phonograph recording : thedeepest gob ever drill on the continent . A British Antarctic Survey - led project drill the hole with the destination of monitoring variety within the area ’s ice sheet . Using red-hot water to melt a transmission channel in the ice , the investigator drilled to a profundity of 7,060 feet ( 2,152 meters ) .
It ’s not the deepest gob ever drill on Earth , by far . That honor goes to the Kola Superdeep Borehole in Russia , which penetrated 40,230 feet ( 12,262 m ) into Earth ’s crust . That borehole carry 20 years to moil , compared with just 63 hours for the West Antarctic golf hole .
Shackleton’s lost ship — almost
In 1915 , the Endurance , helmed by Sir Ernest Shackleton , slipped beneath the Weddell Sea , crushed by the Antarctic ’s unrelenting ice . Shackleton and his man abandoned the ship , which had been trapped in pack ice for months . They arrange off on a 720 - nautical - mile journey in lifeboats toward South Georgia Island , where they were rescue . The crew recorded the last position of the Endurance , though , raising hopes that its wreck might someday be find out .
A 2019 expedition got close — but the Antarctic was n’t ready to turn the Endurance just yet . On the final leg of its delegacy to the wreck web site , the Weddell Sea Expeditionlost its sea - going laggard under the iceand had to call it quits .
Red ice, green ice…?
Though ice is usually white or disconsolate , Antarctica also host ice in some surprising hues . The famousBlood Fallsin the McMurdo Dry Valleys is — as the name would indicate — an atomic number 26 - productive red . And then there are the green icebergs . Researchers had never known until this year why some Antarctic icebergs are a striking shadowiness of William Green , but now they have a theory : The huemay follow from Fe - oxide dust , carried by glacial ice into the ocean .
Icequakes demystified
Seismic sensors in Antarctica capture grand of tiny earthquakes throughout the melt season . These quakes ca n’t be felt by humans , but now scientist know why they ’re happening . When water ice - covered puddles of water begin to re - freeze at night , the expansion of the water garble the “ lid ” of deoxyephedrine on top . With enough press , the cinema of shabu breaks , make a tiny microseism that is picked up on seismographs . investigator are now working to fancy out how this melting - freeze - thaw cycle might dally into the larger dynamic of the ice sheets .
Gaping holes explained
Another Antarctic mystery : gaping holes in the ice called polynya , which pop up even in winter , when the meth pack is at its thickest .
In June , researchers report that they might know why these polynyas exist in the ocean ice . Using satellite tag seize to wild seal , the scientists pile up water datum and compared it to the timing of polynyas curtain raising and close . They found that polynyas form when thecombination of ocean currents and potent , stormy windsis just right . The polynyas also release a batch of estrus from the underlying ocean , which may further influence local weather and farting shape .
Stardust older than the sun
Antarctica is fertile ground for meteorite hunter , because the space rock music that country there amass in glaciers and tend to become concentrated . One of these meteorites turned up something incredible , scientist reported in April . One of its grains , just 1/25,000 of an inch in size , isa atom of dust from a principal explosioncalled a nova . The debris speck is older than the sun and carry clew to the composition of the earlysolar system .
Earth’s oldest ice
Antarctica ’s groan ice sheets likely contain the honest-to-goodness ice on Earth , and scientist are hunting it down .
In April , research worker with the " Beyond EPICA - Oldest Ice " foreign mission announced that they are startinga five - year undertaking to drill into Little Dome C , a location near the Concordia enquiry station on the Antarctic Plateau . About 1.5 miles ( 2.7 km ) down , the team expects to find water ice that has been stop dead in position for between 800,000 and 1.5 million years .
Originally print on Live Science .
