“Unearthed Secrets: What a 90-Million-Year-Old Antarctic Rainforest Reveals About Earth’s Lost Climate”
Published in Nature, the scans revealed samples of forest soil, pollen, spores, and root systems. These were so well preserved that Alfred Wegener Institute experts could identify cell structures, including pollen from the first flourishing plants found this close to the South Pole.
“During the initial shipboard assessments, the unusual coloration of the sediment layer quickly caught our attention; it clearly differed from the layers above it,” said geologist and lead author of the study Johann Klages.
“We had found a layer originally formed on land, not in the ocean.”
After dating the soil, researchers were stunned to find it was 90 million years old.
Alfred Wegener InstituteTina Van De Flierdt and Johann Klages were stunned at the information revealed in this ancient sediment from 90 million years ago.
The warmest period for Earth in the last 140 million years was the mid-Cretaceous era, between 80 million and 115 million years ago. Sea levels were 558 feet higher than they are now, with surface temperatures reaching up to 95 degrees Fahrenheit in the more tropical regions.
Up until now, however, no evidence this far south has been collected regarding Antarctica’s conditions between 83 million and 93 million years ago. This is officially the southernmost sample of soil regarding that particular location and period of time.
“The preservation of this 90-million-year-old forest is exceptional, but even more surprising is the world it reveals,” said Tina van de Flierdt, co-author of the study and professor in the Imperial College London’s Department of Earth Science and Engineering.
