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Weird Animals Often Seen In Antarctica

Xanatic said:
What about penguins?

What about them?

I suppose Penguins have been there for millions of years. I wonder if the species that migrat into the interior started doing so when the place was more hospitable.
 
sometimes they find dead seals far inland in antarctica. it is presumed wind blows the corpses inland, but no one really knows for sure. there was a picture in FT of one, oh, 6 or 7 years ago IIRC

there WAS speculation Lake Vostok (under the icecap, a large body of fresh water) might hold unique organisms but I'm not sure if the drill has reached it yet. (they were drilling down to investigate). You can probably Google and find out.

Back on the subject of Lovecraft films, what about Re-Animator???
 
Austen said:
Thanks Emps,

So I suppose it is unlikely that there are any large mammals (a part from seals) left on the continent, and not much chance of any ancient civilizations there either.

I'm afraid the chance of any ancient civilisations existing on Antarctica (at least in the last few million years - perhaps its where all the clever dinosaurs lived ;) ) is vanishingly small - unless they had really good double glazing and loft insulation (might be worth a punt on the fall of Atlantis - eventually they got over run by cold calls - some days I know I feel like civilisation might end if someone else wants to sell me a conservatory).

Large surface mammals other than the very lost and some bearded scientist (even the ladies ;) ) is pretty much a non-starter too. However, as sninik has mentioned there is the Lake Vostok-type scenario. If you've looked at maps of Antarctica with and without its Ice (I have spent many a happy hour pouring over them for my sins) then its clear that while it is one land mass the weight of ice has pushed it down so there are actual two main 'islands' so it is possible that there are trapped bodies of water there but I'm unsure if they exist and what size they are.

Emps
 
Lake Vostok

here is a nice webpage with details on Lake Vostok and other subglacial freshwater lakes. These are the closest earthly analogues to Europa.

http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~mstuding/vostok.html

Imagine if they drilled down and found shoggoths down there...oh my :eek!!!!:

Emps, you might be confusing the "Antarctica without ice" scenario with these lakes. If you melted all the ice off Antarctica rapidly, the continent would form two islands with a shallow sea in between them This is because of isostatic depression (weight of ice on crust has depressed crust below sea level). But this area of Antarctic continent with land surface below sea level is again an order of magnitude or two larger than Lake Vostok, and more importantly, doesnt seem to have significant lakes or freshwater under the ice at this time.
 
There is a theory in plate tectonics associated with glaciation that states if you get a sudden release of pressure from major glaciation (say a rise in temperature causing a major ice slip) there is a pause (usually measured in years to decades rather than the more usual centuries to millennia) then the crust 'pops' up, causing tsunamis and massive earthquakes.


And reading 'At the Mountains of Madness' its probably going to be pissed off crinoids rather than their erstwhile slaves... that would be cool :D
 
sninik: I wasn't really getting confused I was just throwing out vague possibilities. I'm not aware of any studies that show large bodies of water under the Antarctic ice that isn't connected to the sea but that is really the only possibility for naything seriously cryptozoologically interesting.

HC: There is rebound after rapid unloading of ice but it is usually pretty slow although I suppose its possible that some areas might get 'stuck' and then it might move more rapidly depending on the various stresses and strains but I'm not sure if it would be too significant or major. Got any further evidence for that? I've been taught a lot of glaciology and tectonics and no one mentioned anything quite so drastic but.........

Emps
 
Geologist from Newcastle Uni who worked on Underworld was my source... name escapes me now... Its covered inthere IIRC...
 
Emperor said:
HC: There is rebound after rapid unloading of ice but it is usually pretty slow although I suppose its possible that some areas might get 'stuck' and then it might move more rapidly depending on the various stresses and strains but I'm not sure if it would be too significant or major. Got any further evidence for that? I've been taught a lot of glaciology and tectonics and no one mentioned anything quite so drastic but.........

Emps

Is this the same effect that makes Scotland rise and Southern England sink? If so, the effect isn't very quick - it is still going on 10,000 years after the last ice age.
 
Again, IIRC, yes... but to get the other effect it has to be a sudden, catestrophic release of the pressure, not just a melt, which is the common cause, and allows stress to be released over time rather than a pop...
 
Linking continental slope failures and climate change: Testing the clathrate gun hypothesis
Mark Maslin, University College London, Department of Geography, 26 Bedford Way, London, WC1H 0AP, U.K.; et al. Pages 53-56.

A major debate in science is whether gas hydrate release or changes in tropical wetlands cause the massive variations seen in ice-core atmospheric methane record during the Pleistocene. Because submarine sediment failures can be up to the size of Jamaica, they have the capacity to release vast quantities of methane hydrates. One of the major tests of Jim Kennett's clathrate gun hypothesis is determining whether continental-slope failures and increases in atmospheric methane correlate. To test the clathrate gun hypothesis we have collated published dates for submarine sediment failures in the North Atlantic sector and correlated them with climatic change for the past 45 k.y. Our data support the clathrate gun hypothesis for glacial-interglacial transitions. The data do not, however, support the clathrate gun hypothesis for the rapid glacial-period millennial-scale climate cycles because the occurrence of sediment failures correlates with the cold Heinrich events. Thus sediment failure correlates with lows in sea level and atmospheric methane. A secondary use of our data set is the insight into the possible cause of continental-slope failures. Glacial-period slope failures occur mainly in the low latitudes and are associated with lowering sea level. This finding suggests that reduced hydrostatic pressure and the associated destabilization of gas hydrates may be the primary cause. The Bølling-Ållerød sediment failures are predominantly low latitude, suggesting an early tropical response to deglaciation. In contrast, sediment failures during the Preboreal period and the majority of the Holocene occurred in the high latitudes, suggesting either isostatic rebound–related earthquake activity or reduced hydrostatic pressure, again caused by isostatic rebound, causing destabilization of gas hydrates. This correlation implies that the largest threat to continental-slope stability in the possible greenhouse future is melting of the ice-sheet margins and the resultant isostatic rebound. This is a significant worry, as there is already evidence that these processes are occurring in Antarctica and Greenland. Moreover, it should be noted that these continental slope failures would all be accompanied by large tsunamis.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-01/gsoa-jga010604.php
 
Yup and rebound related earth quakes...

I'm probalby mis-remebering things since its a while since I read Underworld..
 
HC: Yep earthquakes are common but it doesn't actually say anything about the ground popping up rapidly.

Emps
 
I'm probably talking non-sense then... :)

If I get the chance to dig out Underworld I'll find out what I'm half remembering :D
 
Emperor said:
HC: Yep earthquakes are common but it doesn't actually say anything about the ground popping up rapidly.

Emps

I have this mental image of the centre of a continent popping up like the dimple at the centre of a jar lid!
 
It was the impression I got, just on a (fast) geological scale... so decades instead of centuries, then it sort of settles down to the few mm a year we see... but I think I must have been in a laudanum fuelled fugue :)
 
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