Discovery of 40 million year old year giant river by researcher in Antarctica ice

Researchers in the icebreaker Polarstern in the West Antarctica Region (Image credit: Johann Klages)

A remarkable discovery was made by geologists, about the giant river in the ice of Antarctica. This year 40 million years old, this discovery is made by the collaborative efforts of the team of geologists led by Johann Klages.

Johann Klages from the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research in Germany, this research is on the Earth's climate conditions. This report was published on June 5, in the Journal of Science Advances.

Johann Klages in an interview with Live Science said, "If we think about a potentially severe climate change in the future, we need to learn from periods in Earth's history where this already happened."

Scientists are investigating more climate change that is happening in Antarctica, majorly the rise of carbon dioxide due to humans. Most of West Antarctica is covered in ice, and that makes it harder to get the sample of the sedimentary rocks, minerals and fossils that are required for the study of the environments of Antarctica.

In 2017, Klages and a team of scientists conducted research aboard the research vessel Polarstern. Their journey began in the southern part of Chile and took them through the Drake Passage to reach the western regions of the icy Antarctic.

Equipped with state-of-the-art seafloor drilling equipment, Klages and his team aimed to gather core samples from both soft sediments and hard rocks embedded in the frozen seabed.

This expedition was crucial for understanding the geological and environmental history of Antarctica. The cores extracted from the seabed provided valuable data on past climatic conditions, sedimentation processes, and the movement of tectonic plates.

The advanced drilling technology enabled the team to penetrate deep into the seafloor, uncovering layers of sediments that had remained undisturbed for millions of years.

The research carried out on the Polarstern significantly contributed to our knowledge of the Antarctic region, offering insights into how the continent's ice sheets have evolved over time and how they might respond to future climate changes.

During this period, Earth's atmosphere experienced major transformations, with drastically reduced carbon dioxide levels resulting in global cooling and the formation of glaciers on a planet that was previously ice-free.

The existence of the river offers crucial insights into Earth's past and prompts important questions about how severe climate changes might affect our planet in the future.