Melting glaciers in Arctic reveal land hidden for 40,000 years, study says

https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/melting-glaciers-in-arctic-reveal-land-hidden-for-40000-years-study-says/ar-BBSTGVO?li=BBnb7Kz

Melting glaciers in the Arctic have unearthed land that has been covered in ice for more than 40,000 years, a study says.


Researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder collected 48 plant samples from ice caps west of Greenland on Baffin Island, the world's fifth-largest island.

Researchers also collected quartz from these areas to help determine the age and history of ice coverage.

Using radiocarbon dating, which measures the amount of a radioactive isotope of carbon in an organism, researchers learned the plants were likely continuously covered in ice for at least 40,000 years.

The study, published Monday in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Communications, also found that, compared against temperature data for the region, modern temperatures represent the warmest century in 115,000 years.

You’d normally expect to see different plant ages in different topographical conditions," said lead author Simon Pendleton, a doctoral researcher in the University of Colorado Boulder's Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, in a statement.