This place has been frozen for 34 million years. Soon the ice may melt and reveal a mysterious area

Experts warn that the ice level in Antarctica is dramatically low. Global warming may contribute to the discovery of valleys and hills that have been frozen for centuries in the eastern part of the continent. The gigantic surface of the Earth’s south pole, covered in ice, may reveal more secrets in the coming years.

Landscapes hidden under a thick layer of ice

The unexplored areas of Antarctica have been under a massive cover of ice for 34 million years. It has been melting in recent years, which may lead to the disclosure of the secrets of the ice kingdom in the future. According to scientists, hidden beneath the surface are numerous hills and valleys carved by once active rivers. The frozen landscape of eastern Antarctica is as large as Belgium and hides a completely unknown world frozen for centuries. According to research by Professor Stewart Jamieson, a glaciologist from the University of Durham, an area covering 32,000 square meters. square kilometers was once a forest-covered home for plants and animals. When the ice appeared, everything that existed here before was “frozen in time”.

“It’s a completely undiscovered area – no one has ever seen what’s under the ice. This place is less explored than the surface of Mars,” said Prof. Jamieson, the main author of the research.

Scientists are using new methods to find out the truth

Scientists are trying to verify what is actually under the ice. For this purpose, an echo sounder method is used, which involves sending radio waves inland by an aircraft flying over the examined surface. Then the resulting echo is analyzed. Because Antarctica is larger than Europe, it is not possible to perform such tests on the entire continent. So the researchers used existing satellite images of the continent’s surface to look at the valleys and mountain ridges recorded there. Combined with radio echosounder data, scientists revealed a landscape of lakes, deep valleys and sharp mountain peaks, which they compared to Snowdonia in north Wales. Prof. Jamieson estimates that the sun last touched this hidden world 24 million years ago.