Continents from millions of years ago discovered by satellite imagery

Researchers at the University of Kiel, Germany, and the British Antarctic Survey, England, re-evaluated satellite imagery collected by the European Space Agency's Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) and made new discoveries. Below the miles upon miles of ice and snow are hidden ancient continents that may even have been inhabited millions of years ago.

What allowed these new readings of the relatively old images was the possibility of advancing the way this interpretation is made. This is because GOCE was sent into space to measure the gravity of the earth, identifying where it would be stronger or weaker. Thanks to the data collected by him, it is now possible to redraw exactly the structure and composition of the terrain of the globe below the ice surface.

"These gravity images are revolutionizing our ability to study Earth's least understood continent, Antarctica, " said Fausto Ferraccioli, one of the authors of the research. It is now known that the type of territory under frozen water is - or was at some point - very similar to what you see in the rest of the world: craton, orogen, tectonic plate attitudes capable of generating geographies such as mountain ranges, for example.

According to the researchers, more than knowing what the continent is like beneath the ice and how it formed, this kind of discovery could help scientists predict how thawing should proceed now that Antarctica is melting faster and faster.

The analysis, which began in 2009, has data of 4 years, since the mission ended in 2013, and enables the construction of materials, such as the video below, about the geological formation of the continent. “In eastern Antarctica, we see an exciting mosaic of geological features that reveal similarities and fundamental differences between the crust below Antarctica and other continents it joined until 160 million years ago, ” explains Ferraccioli.

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