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impactlab_2011 02531.txt

#Unraveling The Secrets of Antarcticaâ##s Fossilized Forests The Fossilized Tree Rings Dont Lie It may be hard to believe, but Antarctica was covered once in towering forests. One hundred million years ago, the Earth was in the grip of an extreme Greenhouse effect. The polar ice caps had melted all but; in the south, rainforests inhabited by dinosaurs existed in their place. These Antarctic ecosystems were adapted to the long months of winter darkness that occur at the poles, and were truly bizarre. But if global warming continues unabated, could these ancient forests be a taste of things to come? It may be hard to believe, but Antarctica was covered once in towering forests. One hundred million years ago, the Earth was in the grip of an extreme Greenhouse effect. The polar ice caps had melted all but; in the south, rainforests inhabited by dinosaurs existed in their place. These Antarctic ecosystems were adapted to the long months of winter darkness that occur at the poles, and were truly bizarre. But if global warming continues unabated, could these ancient forests be a taste of things to come? One of the first people to uncover evidence for a once greener Antarctic was none other than the explorer, Robert Falcon Scott. Toiling back from the South pole in 1912, he stumbled over fossil plants on the Beardmore Glacier at 82 degrees south. The extra weight of these specimens may have been a factor in his untimely demise. Yet his fossil discoveries also opened up a whole new window on Antarcticas subtropical past. Forests in the frost Professor Jane Francis of the University of Leeds is an intrepid explorer who has followed in Scotts footsteps. She has spent 10 field seasons in Antarctica collecting fossil plants and received the Polar Medal from the Queen in 2002. I still find the idea that Antarctica was forested once absolutely mind-boggling, #she told the BBC. We take it for granted that Antarctica has always been frozen a wilderness, but the ice caps only appeared relatively recently in geological history.##One of her most amazing fossil discoveries to date was made in the Transantarctic Mountains, not far from where Scott made his own finds. She recalled: We were glaciated high up on peaks when we found a sedimentary layer packed full of fragile leaves and twigs.##These fossils proved to be stunted remains of bushes of beech. At only three to five million years old, they were some of the last plants to have lived on the continent before the deep freeze set in. LINK Share Thissubscribedel. icio. usfacebookredditstumbleupontechnorati t

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