Did you know there’s a whole ancient world buried under Antarctica’s ice? Scientists discovered the remains of prehistoric ecosystems, including rivers and lakes, trapped beneath miles of frozen surface. It’s like a ghost of Earth’s distant past, preserved in icy time capsules for millions of years. This hidden world may have once teemed with life, back when Antarctica was lush and green instead of the frozen desert it is today. The coolest part? Exploring it could give us clues about how life adapts to extreme conditions—on Earth and maybe even other planets. It’s wild to think that under all that ice lies a snapshot of a world we never knew! Animation is created by Bright Side.
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FunTranscript
00:00The South Pole is more than penguins and endless snow, there's a hidden ghost world within
00:05it.
00:06Look, it's right here on the globe.
00:09Don't confuse Antarctica with the Arctic, which is at the top of our maps, much smaller
00:13in size and, let's face it, way less mysterious.
00:18The ice sheet covering Antarctica is about 1 to 3 miles thick, which is up to 16 Eiffel
00:24Towers stacked on each other.
00:27This massive blanket hides the true features and contours of Antarctica's land.
00:32We still don't know much about this mysterious continent, and it is ice and snow that are
00:37to blame.
00:38We still don't even know the true shape and size of this continent.
00:42Mapping Antarctica without some huge shovels is an incredibly hard task, but satellites
00:48learn to penetrate the ice with their cameras, and now we know there's actually an enormous,
00:54dramatic ancient landscape beneath the snow.
00:58The ghost of the past.
01:01About 90 million years ago, Antarctica was a much warmer place.
01:06It was actually a lush rainforest with tons of plants and probably teeming with life.
01:11It even had rivers flowing through it.
01:14Then the ice came.
01:15This happened about 34 million years ago, during the transition from the Eocene to the
01:20Oligocene, when our planet cooled significantly.
01:24It was the beginning of one of our several ice ages.
01:28The land remained, but now was hidden under ice and snow that got thicker and thicker.
01:34To a regular eye, Antarctica turned into a white desert, vast, flat, and featureless.
01:42Time went on.
01:44This massive ice sheet moved around, smoothing and shifting the ground beneath it.
01:49Over the millions of years, it changed what the land looked like.
01:53Now if we looked under the ice, it wouldn't hold any signs of the original South Pole.
01:58Except for one place.
02:01In areas where the ice is especially thick and doesn't move much, like in East Antarctica,
02:06it has actually worked the other way around.
02:09It became like a super-thick blanket that protects the land.
02:14Normally things like wind or rain slowly wear away the ground over time, changing its shape.
02:20But since we have this protective ice blanket, it prevents these natural processes from reaching
02:25the stuff underneath.
02:27So the ground stayed almost the same for millions of years, like it's been frozen in time.
02:34This special area near the Aurora and Schmidt subglacial basins has become the ghost of
02:39Antarctica's landscape.
02:41This place was barely touched even since it was first covered in snow 34 million years
02:46ago.
02:48This is a historical footprint, a place that can tell us what Antarctica's ground looked
02:52like before it became a freezing nightmare.
02:56As scientists peered under East Antarctica, they saw an amazing ghost, the traces of the
03:02rivers that were flowing there millions of years ago, various valleys, and some weird
03:08little islands, as well as three big chunks of land shaped like the letter U.
03:13Hey, what's that all about?
03:17You see, the continents on our planet are moving constantly, sliding along the red-hot
03:22lava mantle like cereal on milk.
03:26Over history, they came together and broke apart several times.
03:31Hundreds of millions of years ago, several continents were a part of one enormous Gondwana.
03:37Antarctica was one of them.
03:38It used to be one huge landmass.
03:42But when Gondwana broke apart, the poor continent got stretched by tectonic forces.
03:48Parts of land were pulled away from each other, whoosh, and they got torn apart.
03:53And that's how we got these big chunks or blocks of land under thick layers of ice.
03:59In any case, scientists now want to explore this ghost a bit more.
04:04But to study it deeply, they need to actually drill down through the ice, like using a straw
04:08to get to the bottom of a thick shake.
04:11This will help them pick up some rocks and dirt from way below to learn more about the
04:16Earth's history and climate.
04:19Antarctica is the 5th largest continent in the world, approximately bigger than the entirety
04:24of Europe or Australia, competing with the entire South America in size.
04:29Aside from East Antarctica, we discussed, there are several more regions, Antarctica
04:35Peninsula, South Pole, West Antarctica, and the Ross Sea.
04:41The continent is basically a frozen sandbox, and all its hidden, mysterious landscape is
04:46actually less explored than Mars' terrain.
04:50We only know for sure that without ice, it wouldn't just be flat and empty, but an entire
04:55world full of big mountains, huge canyons, and even fiery volcanoes.
05:03Some of these volcanoes are so huge that they peak above the layers of snow.
05:07In West Antarctica alone, there are at least 138 volcanoes, though only about 8 or 9 are
05:15active today.
05:16One of the craziest ones is Mount Erebus, the southernmost volcano and the tallest one
05:21on the continent, about 12,500 feet high.
05:26And deep beneath the ice sheet, this guy hosts incredible beautiful sub-volcanic caves.
05:32The temperatures there are warm enough for t-shirts!
05:36The Antarctic Peninsula, or Lesser Antarctica, looks like a bunch of mountainous islands
05:41deeply underground.
05:43It has newer volcanic rocks that are part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, which is like
05:48a giant circle of volcanoes and earthquake zones around the Pacific Ocean.
05:54The Greater Antarctica is a huge part, almost as big as Australia.
05:59It consists of East Antarctica and the South Pole.
06:03Beneath the ice, it's a place of rocks that have been around for a very, very long time,
06:09including the special zone we mentioned.
06:12You probably know that Antarctica is nearly devoid of humans.
06:16No wonder, with a mean temperature of about minus 46 degrees Fahrenheit!
06:22But even though this place is horrifyingly cold and deserted, life still clings on.
06:27You guessed it, in the underworld!
06:30In 2017, scientists found DNA traces of algae, moss, and even possibly unknown small animals
06:37in the deep caves.
06:39That means that even in such crazy conditions, there are still unique ecosystems thriving
06:44in little isolated worm pockets beneath the snow.
06:48There was another incredible find beneath Antarctica's Ross Ice Shelf, a lively ecosystem
06:55vibing within an underground river.
06:58Scientists have long suspected that Antarctica's underworld should have some freshwater lakes
07:03and rivers.
07:04One day, a satellite spotted a groove there.
07:08They decided to explore it, and used a hot water drill to melt their way through the ice.
07:14As they reached the underworld, they dropped a camera into one of those hidden fresh rivers.
07:19And at first, they thought they'd find just some rocks or something.
07:23But instead, they stumbled upon hundreds of amphipods, tiny shrimp-like creatures.
07:30Little ones instantly swarmed around the lens.
07:33Shrimps blocked the camera and scientists couldn't check out what they wanted to.
07:37Pretty funny, but at least that means that there really is an important ecosystem deep
07:42within Antarctica.
07:44Now they're gonna explore it!
07:47And all this is just the beginning of the mysterious underworld.
07:51Antarctica's snow also hides the deepest canyon on Earth under the Denman Glacier.
07:56Well, Mariana Trench is still the deepest point on Earth, but it's a part of the oceanic
08:01crust, geologically speaking.
08:05Also in 1958, explorers found a huge mountain range under the ice, as big and tall as the
08:12famous Alps Mountains.
08:14The range stretched for about 745 miles with peaks as high as 1.7 miles.
08:21And all this magnificence is buried under tons of ice.
08:25Who knows what else we might find there?
08:28Antarctica holds about 60% of our entire planet's freshwater, which means it would be pretty
08:34bad if it melted.
08:36For example, there's this doomsday glacier, officially known as Thwaites Glacier.
08:42It's a huge ice formation, about the size of Florida, and it's melting right now.
08:48Every year, the sea levels rise by 4% because of it.
08:52If this guy melts away completely, the sea levels all around the world will increase
08:56by 2 feet, which might not sound like a lot, but it would be catastrophic for coastal areas.
09:03Luckily, researchers have found that even if its ice shelf were to collapse in the next
09:0750 years, the glacier itself wouldn't retreat as quickly as they feared.
09:12It's still losing ice rapidly, but it would be quite a slow process.
09:18That's it for today!
09:19So, hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your
09:23friends!
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