Today, Antarctica is a huge frozen continent, though it was once temperate enough to be covered in swampy forests. Now, a team of scientists has discovered fossilized tree resin—amber—on the continent for the first time.
In fact, research has shown that Antarctica is rising up out of the ocean as it sheds its ice, and the effects on our planet are going to be massive.
Ice sheets, the massive frozen expanses covering Antarctica, are harboring a hidden threat beneath their surface.
The hunt for the origin of garnet crystals found on South Australian beaches took researchers thousands of kilometres and half a billion years back in time to a hidden Antarctic mountain range.
On May 20th, 2024, an iceberg measuring 380 square kilometers broke off the Brunt Ice Shelf in Antarctica. This event (A-83) is this region's third significant iceberg calving in the past four years.
Antarctica’s Ross Ice Shelf, a massive floating ice platform about the size of France, shifts suddenly a few centimeters at least once a day.
For every tenth of a degree of increase in global air temperature, an average of nearly 9,000 meteorites disappear from the surface of the ice sheet.
Scientists have discovered in Antarctic ice a strange link between past levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide and centuries-long global pandemics, reminding us of just how easily humans - or the lack thereof - can shape planet Earth.
This direct historical connection suggests that around 125,000 years ago, the massive 2.2 million cubic kilometer West Antarctic Ice Sheet that separates the two bays had fully collapsed into the sea.
The ozone hole over Antarctica is one of the biggest on record, roughly three times the size of Brazil. It's a natural phenomenon, but scientists are concerned climate change could begin reopening ozone holes.
Antarctica is missing an obscene amount of ice. The missing sea ice is currently the size of Greenland, a country that spans nearly 2.2 million square kilometres.
In the southern hemisphere summer of 2022, the amount of sea ice dropped to 1.92m sq km on 25 February – an all-time low based on satellite observations that started in 1979.
Technically referred to as sedaDNA – for sedimentary ancient DNA – the recovered samples are likely to prove useful in the ongoing efforts to understand how climate change could affect Antarctica in the future.
Eastern Antarctica has recorded exceptionally high temperatures in March, more than 30 degrees Celsius above normal, say experts.
A swarm of crab-like creatures were found 1,600 feet under the Antarctic ice in a freshwater river, signifying an unexplored ecosystem.