Earth/Environment
How Antarctica got its ice, plus Chinese dust-ups and rising bird malaria in this week’s news
By Science News
How Antarctica got its ice
East Antarctica’s great ice sheet was already present — and bigger than today — by 14.7 million years ago, about a million years earlier than some scientists had thought. A 1,100-meter-long core drilled off the Antarctic coast in McMurdo Sound shows when ice affected the sediments settling on the seafloor. Knowing Antarctica’s glacial history helps scientists better understand past climate and how the modern ice sheet might respond to warming temperatures. Sandra Passchier of Montclair State University in New Jersey and her colleagues report the discovery in an upcoming
Geological Society of America Bulletin
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