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In Antarctica the fossil remains of a rainforest

2020-04-02T13:13:31.355Z


Dates from 90 million years ago (ANSA)


The fossil remains of a rainforest of 90 million years ago were discovered in Antarctica: it is an indication that during the Cretaceous period the climate at the South Pole was exceptionally hot, with average annual temperatures of 12 degrees centigrade. The study, published in the journal Nature, is coordinated by the Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research of the German Alfred Wegener Institute, with Johann Klages, with Imperial College London.

The analysis was carried out on the sediments collected in 2017 in the sea of ​​Amundsen, in the western region of Antarctica, about thirty meters below the ocean floor, thanks to the use of the German icebreaker Polarstern.

The analyzes conducted since then, such as complex X-ray CT, have surprisingly brought to light the pristine remains of the soil of a Cretaceous forest, with traces of pollen, plant spores and roots. It was thus possible to reconstruct a marshy landscape similar to that of today's rain forests in New Zealand.

"The unusual coloration of the sediments, different from that of the upper layers, immediately caught our attention," said Klages. "The samples were so well preserved that we could distinguish the individual cellular structures." According to the study authors , to make the temperatures so mild in the past, an anomaly for the South Pole, was the high concentration of atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide.

The Middle Cretaceous period, roughly between 115 and 80 million years ago, is considered by scholars to be the warmest of the last 140 million years, with sea surface temperatures in the Tropics of around 35 degrees and a higher water level 170 meters from the current one. The discovery, the experts explain, will help to reconstruct the climatic history of the Earth, starting from the causes that led to Antarctica in the transition from a temperate climate to the current harsh one.

Source: ansa

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