For more information about antarctica check the Wikipedia article here
A new study that examined ice core samples found that parts of Antarctica‘s ice are melting at at the highest pace this millennium. The findings put modern global warming into a historical context emphasizing the link between human induced climate change and rapid ice melting in the Arctic, considering it has increased tenfold since the dawn [...]
Fri, Mar 8, 2013
We have a rather sound image in our heads of Antarctica: cold, barren and damn well inhospitable. Million of years ago before a big freeze turned the continent into a huge popsicle, Antarctica was flat, covered in vegetation and riddled with flowing rivers and life. University of Arizona researchers have sampled key sediments from the Lambert Graben [...]
Mon, Feb 11, 2013
Using 21st century nanotechnology, researchers have discovered a new mineral in samples from a meteorite discovered in Antarctica in 1969. The meteorite is 4.5 billion years old and originates from an asteroid orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. The new mineral has alluded scientists for some time since its discovery by a Japanese expedition team to Antarctica [...]
Fri, Feb 8, 2013
Underneath hundreds of meters of Antarctic ice lie a slew of lakes, completely isolated from the outside world, some for thousand of years. For years, scientists have been trying to imagine what life in such a system might look like, if any. Just recently an US Antarctic expedition found a small body of water huddled in [...]
Thu, Aug 2, 2012
Scientists who studied sediment cores drilled from the ocean floor off the Antarctic coast, have found on subsequent analysis fossil pollens that came from a tropical forest. Most likely, the continent was covered by rainforest some 52 million years ago. The researchers involved warn however that by the end of the century, ice from the [...]
Fri, Jul 27, 2012
Scientists from Britain have found a remote ice rift valley, up to one mile deep, under the ice in Antarctica. The rift is similar in size and depth to the Grand Canyon and because it is direct contact with the warming ocean, it’s been found that it has a significant contribution to the unusual ice sheet melting [...]
Wed, Jul 18, 2012
Researchers at the University of Delaware and the Canadian Ice Service recently reported that an ice island, whose surface is twice that of Manhattan, broke off from Greenland’s Petermann Glacier, one of the two largest glaciers left in Greenland connecting the great Greenland ice sheet with the ocean via a floating ice shelf. The 46-square-mile giant iceberg broke [...]
Wed, Mar 7, 2012
Antarctica is home to one of harshest environments in the world, but exactly because of this it exhibit a unique set of fauna to the world. As the local arctic climate warms, however, and an increasing number of tourists and scientists are bringing in thousands of seeds, once pristine ecosystems are now at risk. Seeds [...]
Mon, Feb 6, 2012
It took 30 years, an enormous amount of effort and patience, and drilling through 3,768 meters of thick ice for scientists to finally reach the surface of the Vostok, a unique subglacial lake. Just as large as the great Ontario lake, the Vostok is thought to be 20 million years old, and due to the [...]
Thu, Dec 8, 2011
According to Chile’s Centre for Scientific Studies (CECs) it seems like an array of glaciers located in the country’s south have shrunk extensively recently. One such glacier, the Jorge Montt, was documented for a whole year by researchers who observed that its rate of shrinkage is the largest in the country, with snout retreating a [...]
Fri, Dec 2, 2011
Antarctica is the most the arid place on Earth. Its climate is so rough, so hazardous that no permanent human populace can live there, however just a few million years ago the harsh plains of the south and north poles had a subtropical climate – a paradise for life. During a transition period of just 100,000 years, [...]
Wed, Sep 7, 2011
For the first time, king crabs have been found on the edge of Antarctica, probably as a result of global warming, which has made this environment suitable for them, researchers claim. They suggest the crabs were washed in during an upsurge of warmer water, and that this can be extremely damaging to the local ecosystem [...]
Wed, Aug 17, 2011
Despite an evident contrast, geologists claim that the region of modern day El Paso, Texas was once attached to the now icy continent of Antarctica, in an effort to piece together the giant pieces of a puzzle that formed a pre-Pangaea supercontinent. “Most people are familiar with Pangaea,” said study co-author Staci Loewy, a geochemist [...]
Mon, Jul 4, 2011
There isn’t any news for anyone, I hope, that the Earth is on the heater right now, and as time passes and gas emissions in the atmosphere rise, you should be thinking about ordering that air conditioning faster. Yes, glaciers are melting, and like I mentioned before scientists have projected an increase in sea levels [...]
Mon, May 2, 2011
First of all, don’t think of alien species as extraterrestrials; if you came here wanting to hear about that – sorry. Thankfully, the sci-fi scenario is not upon us. I’m talking about species which haven’t originated from Antarctica – seeds, fungi, microorganisms, they go wherever they are taken, and wherever people take them. If you [...]
Fri, Jul 30, 2010
Boy, you just can’t have enough octopus, that’s for sure – they’re really amazing creatures, that often surprise us. Now, a venomous octopus living in the frozen waters of Antarctica is definitely awesome, but how is this useful? Well, according to Bryan Fry, of the University of Melbourne, it is. He and his team have [...]
Mon, May 3, 2010
Using DNA preserved for 25.000 – 43.000 years in bones from Siberian mammoths, a team of international scientists recreated mammoth hemoglobin and studied it, revealing interesting facts about the fascinating animals. “It has been remarkable to bring a complex protein from an extinct species, such as the mammoth, back to life,” says Professor Alan Cooper, [...]
Mon, Jan 11, 2010
The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) published some quite awesome pictures showing that Antarctica isn’t the lifeless frozen wasteland most people believe it to be; ice fish, octopus, sea pigs, giant sea spiders, rare rays and gorgeous basket stars all thrive in the extreme temperatures in Antarctica’s waters. Well, thrive is perhaps a too strong word, [...]
Mon, Dec 14, 2009
Global warming is the main concern on everybody’s lips, causing more and more damage to the environment every year, sometimes in ways that seem hard to believe; everyday there seems to be a new report about something that went, is going, or will be going terribly wrong. However, in the early 1800s, the situation was [...]
Tue, Nov 24, 2009
According to the Australian Antarctic Division, at least a hundred Antarctic icebergs are currently drifting towards New Zealand at a speed that alarmed local authorities as well as specialists from all over the world. A glaciologist from inside the organization said that they already passed the Auckland islands and are currently heading for the main [...]
Fri, Jan 23, 2009
Despite whatever you may hear, it’s obvious that we still don’t have a clear understanding of the impact we’re having on the planet we call home; there are studies that show we’re totally destroying it, and there are studies that we’re an ant on a mountain, so it’s really hard to say for sure how [...]
Mon, Jun 9, 2008
For the first time, scientists have found fossilized burrows of tetrapods (four legged vertebrates) in Antarctica dating from the Early Triassic epoch, about 245 million years ago. They’ve been conducted research there since early 2006, and it’s the first time they’ve actually found something of this calibre. The fossils are created in a relatively simple [...]
Thu, Feb 21, 2008
The return of three Antarctic marine science research vessels marks the crowning of one of Australia’s most ambitious International Polar Year projects, a census of life in the Antarctic seas. The ships (Aurora Australis and collaborating vessels L’Astrolabe from France and Umitaka Maru from Japan) came back from the Southern Ocean, their decks overflowing with [...]
Wed, Jan 23, 2008
A volcano in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet erupted 2000 years ago (325BC) and remains active thus giving us the first evidence of an under-ice volcanic eruption. This volcano has a volcanic explosion index of about 3-4. The heat from the volcano melt-water that lubricates the base of the ice sheet and increases the flow [...]
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Tue, Apr 16, 2013
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