latimes, Geoffery Mohan-July 13,2013
Geologists from the University of Texas, Austin, have discovered a sunken chain of volcanic islands that may have blocked an ocean current around Antarctica tens of millions of years ago. The discovery could help explain anomalies in ancient climate data, which could improve models used to predict Earth's future climate as carbon dioxide builds in the atmosphere. (NASA Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer)
Ancient volcanoes discovered deep in the ocean off Antarctica may explain a climate mystery critical to predicting Earth’s fate as humans pump more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
University of Texas geologists dredging thousands of feet below the surface of the central Scotia Sea off the southeastern tip of South America hauled up volcanic rock after their sonar mapping showed formations that looked uncannily like a sunken island chain.
“It just didn’t look like real ocean floor,” said geologist Ian W. Dalziel, of the University of Texas, Austin, lead author of the paper published Thursday in the journal Geology. “We were seeing features that looked like they were sunken volcanoes, sitting on top of the old ocean floor.”
