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In this thread - let's suspend the talk of potential disaster that come with GW (whether natural or man made or both).
If the entire Antarctic Ice Sheet completely melted - I can't help but wonder what kind of amazing discoveries are waiting to be found under all that ice. For both the earths geological record and for the history of life on this planet.
Feel free to discuss. I suppose I'll see if I can read up on any fossils that have already been found in that area.
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I think there's more to lose in the historic record in the layers of ice than there is to gain by exposing the scoured rock under the ice... not that there's nothing to be gained from the rock, but I think it would be less detailed, and it will always be there, but the layers of ice can never be seen again if they are melted.Originally Posted by Spock Jenkins
Forming opinions as we speak
Order of Kilopi
Lots of things already in the ice might wind up on the sea floor. It would also make dating harder, as all the layers of icebound materials would be moved around and jumbled together.
STARGAZING: All I see are the lights of a billion places I'll never go. --Howard Tayler, Schlock Mercenary
Established Member
Are you referring to the atmospheric history of the earth locked up in those ice layers? I agree - that would be a huge loss. Like I said - for the purposes of this discussion - I'm setting aside all the negatives of the ice melting. Perhaps it's more for off - topic babbling. I'm just thinking there might be some rather unique life that existed at one time in that area. And, given the amount of ice - could be very well preserved (scales and all). Or am I wrong in what would happen with that amount of ice? Would all the fossils be crushed to nothing?
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I wouldn't think so.
Forming opinions as we speak
Established Member
<<If the entire Antarctic Ice Sheet completely melted - I can't help but wonder what kind of amazing discoveries are waiting to be found under all that ice. For both the earths geological record and for the history of life on this planet.>>
As someone with a long-running interest in historical geology, I've often wondered about that myself...Antarctica is a big continent; there must be a lot of history hidden down there. Heck, even outside of Antarctica--remember that news story on that oil well that had the bizarre luck of drilling right through a Plateosaurus fossil? Thinking of stuff like that could drive a nerd crazy.
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I don't believe any carcasses would be found under the ice. For one thing, ice accumulates too gradually over the years, with too much partial thawing along the way, to have smothered a carcass intact and prevented decomposition. And if it had, the weight it eventually added up to would have compressed the carcass so much that it would have no physical structure left but just be a smudge within the ice where the H2O content had some funny impurities in its solution. And even if a carcass were trapped and the weight didn't turn it to ice-pulp, the worst factor of all would still be waiting to chew it up: the way glaciers grow and move is by a sort of grinding, scraping process of the lowest layers against each other and the ground below. It's intense enough to leave oversized-plow-like trenches along the paths where huge boulders were dragged along, gouge out brand new lake beds, and chew up hills in a glacier's way and regurgitate them miles "downstream" as vast piles of gravel or even fine dust wherever the glacier finally quits advancing. Antarctica's ice mass is bigger than any normal glacier and its weight might prohibit such movements now (and even be compacting the soil into square mile after square mile of solid flat rock), but even if that's the case, it would still have gone through a phase of acting like the smaller glaciers do now, before it got this thick.
Established Member
Aside from the history and geology...............
If the volume of the antartic ice sheet is taken to be about 25.4 million km^3 and the toal area of the Earth's oceans is taken to be 307.7 million km^2, the rise in sea level should be 82.6 meters neglecting the additional rise due to the upward rebound of the antartic landmass and assuming no water is trapped in lakes. If there is hard scientific evidence that the rate of global warming, regardless of its cause, will melt the antartic ice sheet within the next 100 years, we need to be taking action to artificially contain fresh water on each continent both to mediate the sea level rise and to provide irrigation for agriculture. To avoid having to pump large masses of water and to avoid the attendant warming from the expenditure of that additionl energy, we need to get very clever very fast about trapping rain water.
As I have stated in other threads, I believe we have not adequately measured Earth's temperature in sufficient locations, at sufficient times, including attention to simultaniety, with sufficient accuracy over significant intervals of time to provide sufficient data to accurately characterize the problem. Consequently, I am not as alarmed as some, but I am puzzled more than most. I have heard the roar of the beast in the night, but I don't know whether nor which way to run. Aside from the effects of global warming, we have a worldwide fresh water supply and distribution problem which the containment program would help alleviate. The implementation of such a progam will take decades, so time is getting to be of the essence.
Order of Dr. Kilopi
More reservoirs huh? Probably a good idea with growing populations.
As for the fossils. There are probably some there, but the animals we'd find aren't ice animals probably more like what we've found in South America, India, and Africa since they were all together at some point before and during glaciation.
Something to be interested in are the sub ice sheet lakes such as Vostok and more than 100 others found to date that possibly have life forms down there. Some are liquid from pure pressure, others have thermal origins. The second are more interesting because if gasses were heating the lakes then it's possible creatures can survive without atmospheric oxygen. Something down there would be worth studying. Of course it's possible now, but there is a hold on drilling until we can do so without contamination.
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I still want to know what, if anything, is in Lake Vostok.
Order of Dr. Kilopi
sediment for sure. fresh water.
Established Member
And bacteria at the least....there is no chance it is sterile, I should think.
Order of Dr. Kilopi
hmmm... there is plenty chance.
no oxygen, and if the thermal input there doesn't add some form of gas or fuel nothing can live. Water alone does not make life.
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Warning big download 7.08 MB
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/pi/vostok/Report.pdf
This is a 83 pg report.
(Pg.11)Finally, in terms of understanding microbes within the lake, the overlying Vostok ice core contains a diverse range of microbes including algae, diatoms, bacteria, fungi, yeasts and actiomycetes (Ellis-Evans and Wynn-Williams, 1996). These organisms have been demonstrated to be viable to depths as deep as 2400 m (Abyzov, 1993).
These findings are from the ice cores for what the scientists think is refrozen lake water. These microbes may come form the glaciers that flow over the lake. Interesting nevertheless.
Established Member
Water contains oxygen...and I know of very, very few completely sterile places on Earth.
Established Member
Without oxygen, we could still have anerobic life forms.
Order of Dr. Kilopi
yes, but they need some fuel to survive. Some eat sulfur dioxide, some toxic acids, but they need something that replenishes itself. Were there no such vent things wouldn't live.
and Water holds oxygen, true, but it has to be put there by plants.
Order of Kilopi
Yes...generaly. But consider an extraordinary condition of an
yellowstone event throwing incredible amounts of water and dust into the atmosphere such that 90 feet of snow accumulate in several weeks.....
tapering off to several feet a week .......to just a little more every so often
and Not melting. Or collision with an extra planetary object whose crater
is still to be found under the permanent ice cap. It remains interesting.
Best regards, Dan
Established Member
I've heard that in Greenland, they've drilled down to the base of the ice and found evidence of a pine forest.
If all the ice melted, it would also be interesting to see how life would populate Antarctica. What plants would take hold? What birds would make residence on the continent. How about land animals? Humans would probably accidently or purposely introduce animals to the new land, but if they didn't, how long would it be before land animals found their way to Antarctica?
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For most of them, it wouldn't happen until Antarctica collided with another continent again, just like most islands too far form a continent get rather few plants & animals colonizing them... unless humans decided to populate the barren Antarctica with species from other continents just because we didn't like the idea of a whole continent with a small island's array of plants & animals.
I once had an idea for a story that would take place millions of years from now, when Antarctica has migrated back into the planet's southern cool-temerapte zone. I could imagine how it would open if it had been a movie: first, scenes of a thick, dark green, wet forest surrounding a lake that people might expect to see in modern North America... then, at the bottom of the screen, an out-of-place name like "Lake Al-Khasef"... followed by the line below it, "Near Mbotu City, Antarctica"... just to throw audiences for a loop and signal how far off it really is.
In reality, I suspect that the soil is so compacted that it's essentially just square mile after square mile of impenetrable flat rock, which will be uninhabitable until there's lots more erosion to turn the rock back into soil.
Order of Kilopi
Most of the dirt particles supended in the ice may be be released by melting, leaving behind a layer of mud.
STARGAZING: All I see are the lights of a billion places I'll never go. --Howard Tayler, Schlock Mercenary
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Certainly hasn't happened to all those frozen mammoths that people have found over the years.
Order of Dr. Kilopi
that wasn't 4 kilometers of ice on top of the bodies though.
Established Member
We would finally find out where the Nazis have been hiding their damn UFOs.
Established Member
Speaking of what's at the bottom of the ice sheet itself, I doubt there's much of interest. Presumably Antarctica was well into the cold, barren tundra stage before the ice sheets covered it up. Any organic matter that survived has probably either already been carried offshore at the base of the sheet, or been ground into oblivion--probably both at once.
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...besides, 'Aliens vs Predator' showed that you don't want to be nosing around inside that pyramid.....
;-))
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It's novel to be talking about some possible benefits of global warming. I've never heard of Lake Vostok before. After reading up on it, it seems like a very interesting place to explore. I can't help but be reminded of Europa when reading about it. I'd to find out of life does exist below the frozen surface, and if it does whether it developed there or if life was introduced/trapped there from days long ago or events unknown.
Order of Kilopi
It´s not a novelty, but it is a danger. People living north of the 48th parallel are very happy with the prospect of having a real summer and being able to grow bananas in the backyard. Global Warming is something desirable for them.
You´re American, right?I've never heard of Lake Vostok before.
Established Member
If I'm not mistaken - Lake Vostok would cease to be what it is if the ice sheet melted. Yes - it would still be a lake, however it would no longer be the potentially uncontaminated body of water that it is currently. As soon as it is uncovered - it would be contaminated by life. Not that contaminated should carry the negative some sort of pollutant. It just wouldn't be able to be studied in the same way. Even now they hestitate to drill down there due to the potential for contamination.
I do wonder if perhaps there is a smaller lake they'd be willing to try that hasn't completely frozen.
As far as other posts go that mentions things being ground and compressed to something barely recognizable - I don't know. It seems like that would be accurate - but I would also think that the condition of any fossils would tell us a lot about how the continent froze. Whether it was fast or slow - whether it dealt with sudden, heavy precipitation or if it was a very slow dry process. I understand currently the continent gets very little new precipitation. Too bad we can uncover it without all the nasty side effects.
Order of Dr. Kilopi
yea, like death to more than half of all humans.
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