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60 million years of glaciation in the Transantarctic Mountains

The Antarctic continent reached its current polar location ~83 Ma and became shrouded by ice sheets ~34 Ma, coincident with dramatic global cooling at the Eocene-Oligocene boundary. However, it is not known whether the first Antarctic glaciers formed immediately prior to this or were present signifi...

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Autores principales: Barr, Iestyn D., Spagnolo, Matteo, Rea, Brice R., Bingham, Robert G., Oien, Rachel P., Adamson, Kathryn, Ely, Jeremy C., Mullan, Donal J., Pellitero, Ramón, Tomkins, Matt D.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9492669/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36130952
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-33310-z
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author Barr, Iestyn D.
Spagnolo, Matteo
Rea, Brice R.
Bingham, Robert G.
Oien, Rachel P.
Adamson, Kathryn
Ely, Jeremy C.
Mullan, Donal J.
Pellitero, Ramón
Tomkins, Matt D.
author_facet Barr, Iestyn D.
Spagnolo, Matteo
Rea, Brice R.
Bingham, Robert G.
Oien, Rachel P.
Adamson, Kathryn
Ely, Jeremy C.
Mullan, Donal J.
Pellitero, Ramón
Tomkins, Matt D.
author_sort Barr, Iestyn D.
collection PubMed
description The Antarctic continent reached its current polar location ~83 Ma and became shrouded by ice sheets ~34 Ma, coincident with dramatic global cooling at the Eocene-Oligocene boundary. However, it is not known whether the first Antarctic glaciers formed immediately prior to this or were present significantly earlier. Here we show that mountain glaciers were likely present in the Transantarctic Mountains during the Late Palaeocene (~60–56 Ma) and middle Eocene (~48–40 Ma). Temperate (warm-based) glaciers were prevalent during the Late Eocene (~40–34 Ma) and, in reduced numbers, during the Oligocene (~34–23 Ma), before larger, likely cold-based, ice masses (including ice sheets) dominated. Some temperate mountain glaciers were present during the Miocene Climatic Optimum (~15 Ma), before a widespread switch to cold-based glaciation. Our findings highlight the longevity of glaciation in Antarctica and suggest that glaciers were present even during the Early-Cenozoic greenhouse world.
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spelling pubmed-94926692022-09-23 60 million years of glaciation in the Transantarctic Mountains Barr, Iestyn D. Spagnolo, Matteo Rea, Brice R. Bingham, Robert G. Oien, Rachel P. Adamson, Kathryn Ely, Jeremy C. Mullan, Donal J. Pellitero, Ramón Tomkins, Matt D. Nat Commun Article The Antarctic continent reached its current polar location ~83 Ma and became shrouded by ice sheets ~34 Ma, coincident with dramatic global cooling at the Eocene-Oligocene boundary. However, it is not known whether the first Antarctic glaciers formed immediately prior to this or were present significantly earlier. Here we show that mountain glaciers were likely present in the Transantarctic Mountains during the Late Palaeocene (~60–56 Ma) and middle Eocene (~48–40 Ma). Temperate (warm-based) glaciers were prevalent during the Late Eocene (~40–34 Ma) and, in reduced numbers, during the Oligocene (~34–23 Ma), before larger, likely cold-based, ice masses (including ice sheets) dominated. Some temperate mountain glaciers were present during the Miocene Climatic Optimum (~15 Ma), before a widespread switch to cold-based glaciation. Our findings highlight the longevity of glaciation in Antarctica and suggest that glaciers were present even during the Early-Cenozoic greenhouse world. Nature Publishing Group UK 2022-09-21 /pmc/articles/PMC9492669/ /pubmed/36130952 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-33310-z Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Article
Barr, Iestyn D.
Spagnolo, Matteo
Rea, Brice R.
Bingham, Robert G.
Oien, Rachel P.
Adamson, Kathryn
Ely, Jeremy C.
Mullan, Donal J.
Pellitero, Ramón
Tomkins, Matt D.
60 million years of glaciation in the Transantarctic Mountains
title 60 million years of glaciation in the Transantarctic Mountains
title_full 60 million years of glaciation in the Transantarctic Mountains
title_fullStr 60 million years of glaciation in the Transantarctic Mountains
title_full_unstemmed 60 million years of glaciation in the Transantarctic Mountains
title_short 60 million years of glaciation in the Transantarctic Mountains
title_sort 60 million years of glaciation in the transantarctic mountains
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9492669/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36130952
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-33310-z
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