A team of researchers found evidence of a new equatorial wind pattern at Antarctica, unveiling a crucial connection between winds at the Earth's equator and atmospheric waves about 10 000 km (6 000 miles) away at the South Pole. The findings highlight how winds…
An international team of researchers found evidence that rainforests once existed in West Antarctica. The mid-Cretaceous time period, from circa 115 million to 80 million years ago, is considered the warmest period in the past 140 million years. Sea surface…
An atmospheric wave about half as wide as the Earth is supercharging noctilucent clouds (NLCs) in the southern hemisphere, with NASA's Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) spacecraft detecting the phenomenon in this series of south polar images from November…
A recently published study found that Antartica's ice sheets are still emitting radioactive chlorine from marine nuclear weapon tests in the 1950s. This suggests that Antartica regions contain and release the radioactive element differently than what was…
Scientists have discovered active volcano heat source under Antartica's fastest-moving and melting glacier – Pine Island Glacier. The surprising find, published recently in Nature Communications, offers insight into the movement and melting of the Pine Island…
A strong and shallow earthquake registered by the USGS as M6.0 hit 265 km (164 miles) NE of Scott Island Bank, Antarctica at 11:37 UTC on February 2, 2018. The agency is reporting a depth of 10 km (6.2 miles). EMSC is reporting the same magnitude and depth….
At the base of the Transantarctic Mountains lies a geological oddity. Don Juan Pond is one of the saltiest bodies of water on the planet, filled with a dense, syrupy brine rich in calcium chloride that can remain liquid to -50 °C (-58 °F), far below the…
A new study adds to evidence that a geothermal heat source called a mantle plume lies deep below Antarctica's Marie Byrd Land, explaining some of the melting that forms lakes and rivers under the ice sheet. Although the heat source isn't a new or increasing…
A remote survey suggested by third-year university student discovered 91 volcanoes in a massive region known as the West Antarctic Rift System. The volcanoes range in height from 100 m to 3 850 m (328 to 12 631 feet). A study conceived by a third-year student at the…
After months of ‘hanging by a thread’, a vast iceberg the size of Norfolk has finally broken off Antarctica’s Larsen C Ice Shelf. Around 30 m (98 feet) of this 190 m (623 feet) thick block of ice sits above the sea surface. Scientists now have…
