Publication Date:
2011-04-01
Description:
Antarctica is the least explored continent on our planet Earth, largely due to today's massive ice cover on the continent, reaching a thickness of 4500 m in places, leaving only 0.3% of the land area uncovered. This ice sheet, however, was not always in place, and its inception ~34 m.y. ago at the Eocene–Oligocene boundary marked one of the most fundamental climate transitions in recent Earth history: the transition from the greenhouse world of the Cretaceous and early Cenozoic to the icehouse world we are currently living in (e.g., Zachos et al., 2008). The paper by Scher et al. (2011, p. 383 in this issue of Geology) provides a detailed record of pulses in Antarctic continental weathering through this glacial onset...
Print ISSN:
0091-7613
Electronic ISSN:
1943-2682
Topics:
Geosciences
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