Last week a new discovery about Antarctica’s unique environment came to light. A massive heat source, similar to the one found in Yellowstone national park, has been found. Finding this heat source was surprising for multiple reasons, one of them being the contradictory nature of a volcano kilometers under ice. “This rifting has thinned the crust and brought hot material from deep down in the Earth — hundreds of kilometers down — to within 100 kilometers or so, perhaps even less, of the rock surface,” says Tom Jordan, co-author of the report.
Some scientists are in fact very excited to find this volcano. They want to drill down into the ice so they are able to retrieve samples of air from millions of years ago. These air samples will give the scientific community a better understanding of the history of Earth’s atmosphere.
Not everyone is excited about drilling, however. With the longest-ever ice drill going down three kilometers, people are unsure how well a nearly five kilometer drilling would go. “I would be concerned that this would speed up the melting of the ice, which could end up being catastrophic for the environment. I also worry about the location of drilling because that could cause more ice to break off of the continent in chunks,” said Gia Mariani, co-president of the Environmental Club.
With a hotter underbelly, it makes the ice above easier to move, which is already happening with global warming. Some fear the volcanic activity combined with global warming will cause larger ice chunks to break off at a faster rate.
If this news about Antarctica is worrisome for you, become involved with local efforts to protect the environment. Mariani recommends the following: “[V]olunteer to help clean up the river or plant trees. At home, [you] can recycle, compost, use reusable water bottles, buy foods that have less packaging and eat less steak, to name just a handful of ways.”
