Sign up to see the future, today Unmissable innovations from the cutting edge of science and technology In a 2022 study, scientists suggested there could be huge mountain ranges, on the scale of the Himalayas, formed about 500 million years ago when the supercontinent Gondwana formed in Earth’s southern hemisphere. The giant mass was once part of modern-day Africa, South America, Antarctica, Australia, the Indian subcontinent and more. The researchers proposed that the supercontinent may have helped fuel life on Earth by affecting global dynamics, including climate and related biological processes, a case explored in detail in a new paper. Now, as detailed in a separate study published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, two geologists from the Australian National University say they have found evidence of fragments of this supercontinent lurking deep in the Antarctic ice sheet, a discovery that could have important implications for how we understand the proliferation of life many millions of years ago. Finding evidence of a huge supercontinent is not as easy as it seems. Many of Gondwana’s mountain ranges have likely eroded over the past 500 million years or so. But by searching for zircons (natural minerals that contain traces of uranium and thorium, allowing scientists to date them), the team created a map of the approximate contours of Gondwana beneath Antarctica. Instead of exploring the continent’s thick ice sheet, the researchers analyzed zircons found in ocean sediments. Data suggest that Antarctica contained a lot of material during the formation of Gondwana between 650 and 450 million years ago. That’s around the time of the Cambrian explosion, or the beginning of the rapid evolution of life on Earth, as traced in the fossil records. The implication: Antarctica may be hiding many of the remains of Himalayan-sized mountains that once allowed life to flourish beneath its deep ice sheet. It may have played an important role, the latest study suggests. “Approximately 46 percent of the detrital zircons in the global weighted database, during the critical period from the base of the Cambrian to the end of the Cambrian explosion, and 55 percent of the high-pressure grains, were derived from Antarctica,” the researchers concluded in their paper. More on Gondwana: Scientists rediscover the lost continent that split from Australia
