• Light/Dark
  • Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
  • We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.

Researchers believe Antarctica was a swampy rainforest 90 million years ago

Officer Big Mac

Officer Big Mac

Member
Oct 28, 2017
22,596
There is something humbling about knowing while humans are landing probes on Mars we are still making discoveries about our planet. Scientists knew the Earth was much warmer in the Cretaceous period, but this is the first sample taken so far south.

Imagining Antarctica with a swampy forest without the -70 degree temperatures and ice sheets fills me with awe. Especially when you think about how Antarctica would have 4 months without the sun.

CT scans of the sediment core revealed pristine samples of forest soil, pollen, spores and even root systems so well preserved that they could identify cell structures. The soil included examples of pollen from the first flowering plants found this close to the South Pole.

Scientists know that during the age of the dinosaurs, conditions were warmer. The mid-Cretaceous era, from 80 million to 115 million years ago, was the warmest period for Earth in the past 140 million years, the researchers said. The surface of the sea likely reached 95 degrees Fahrenheit in tropical areas. And the sea level was 558 feet higher than it is now

The average daytime temperature was 53 degrees Fahrenheit. While that sounds mild to us, this is incredibly warm for a location near the South Pole, where current daytime temperatures hover between negative 76 degrees to 14 degrees Fahrenheit.

The Antarctic ice sheet didn't exist at the time. River and swamp temperatures were likely around 68 degrees Fahrenheit. And the Antarctic summer temperature was likely around 66 degrees Fahrenheit. They estimate rainfall reached about 97 inches per year -- about the same as Wales today.

We now know that there could easily be four straight months without sunlight in the Cretaceous. But because the carbon dioxide concentration was so high, the climate around the South Pole was nevertheless temperate, without ice masses,"
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

www.cnn.com

Evidence of ancient rainforests found in Antarctica

Researchers have discovered evidence that Antarctica had a swampy rainforest 90,000 years ago thanks to sediment cores filled with pristine soil and root systems that preserved the plant cells.
www.cnn.com www.cnn.com
 
PMS341

PMS341

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt-account
Banned
Oct 29, 2017
6,634
Fantastapotamus said:
Neat, that probably means a bunch of frozen viruses
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

wFx8CEr.jpg
 
Xterrian

Xterrian

Member
Apr 20, 2018
2,807
Imagine a survival game like Subnautica, but it's based in Cretaceous era Antarctica during the four months without sunlight.
 
Tappin Brews

Tappin Brews

#TeamThierry
Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,886
wasn't it... in an entirely different location? also, didnt we know this from fossils?
 
Tukarrs

Tukarrs

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,824
It's inevitable that some conservative will use this as proof that climate change has always been happening without humans, and that it's not man made so don't worry about it.
 
Nigel Tufnel

Nigel Tufnel

Member
Mar 5, 2019
3,158
op_ivy said:
wasn't it... in an entirely different location? also, didnt we know this from fossils?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Fossils would certainly imply that the climate wasn't totally inhospitable, but core drilling provides the ability to do a much deeper analysis and more accurately estimate.


We have known that the poles were significantly warmer for decades, this confirms, reiterates, and provides greater detail.
 
DiipuSurotu

DiipuSurotu

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
53,148
Am I missing something? Wasn't the Antarctica not even located on the South Pole back then due to continental drift? It's obvious that it would be warmer.
 
Josh5890

Josh5890

I'm Your Favorite Poster's Favorite Poster
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
23,249
Well at one point the earth was just one continent so I'm not surprised
 
DiipuSurotu

DiipuSurotu

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
53,148
Josh5890 said:
Well at one point the earth was just one continent so I'm not surprised
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
*several points

www.resetera.com

For the longest time I thought there was only one Pangea in the history of Earth

For the longest time I thought Pangea only existed once and it breaking up into continents was a unique event. In reality, the whole tectonic plate shift thing is cyclical. There were several other supercontinents before Pangea, and the current continents will also eventually converge into a...
www.resetera.com www.resetera.com
 
Murfield

Murfield

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,425
PBS Eons did a video on Antarctica freezing.


Apparently it being warm had nothing to do with its position, but its connection to South America and Australia. Some pretty powerful cold ocean currents have been setup since they were disconnected.

Also related:
 
Last edited:
viciouskillersquirrel

viciouskillersquirrel

Cheering your loss
Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,876
Pusherman said:
Wasn't there a Walking with Dinosaurs episode on this? I remember watching something long ago about dinosaurs in Antarctica.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I loved that episode. And it featured one of the last of the predatory giant amphibians. Their niche had gotten taken over by crocodilians pretty much everywhere else, but they hung on in Antarctica because they could hibernate during the winter months while crocodiles couldn't.

Their warmer weather cousins had gone extinct a hundred million years prior and yet here was koolasuchus, being all kool and definitely not sucking.

 
CloudWolf

CloudWolf

Member
Oct 26, 2017
15,643
I mean, of course it was. Do you think the Elder Things would live in a frozen hellscape?
 
L Thammy

L Thammy

Spacenoid
Member
Oct 25, 2017
50,107
I feel like there should be a country named Gondwanaland. Laurasia would just be someone who lives there.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.