Meltwater lakes under the Antarctic Ice Sheet accelerated glacial retreat in the Earth's past
Thursday, June 1, 2017 - 04:02
in Earth & Climate
During the last glacial period - when the ice in the Antarctic was far thicker and extended further offshore than it does today - it has been speculated that subglacial lakes existed beneath it. An international team of researchers has now successfully sampled the metre-thick sediment layers left behind by these lakes contemporary on the seafloor. This is the outcome of a study by Gerhard Kuhn and colleagues, which was published today (1 June 2017) in the journal Nature Communications.