Gamburtsev 'ghost mountains mystery solved'

[Bosonic]

Scientists say they can now explain the existence of what are perhaps Earth's most extraordinary mountains.

The Gamburtsevs are the size of the European Alps and yet they are totally buried beneath the Antarctic ice.

Their discovery in the 1950s was a major surprise. Most people had assumed the rock bed deep within the continent would be flat and featureless.

Survey data now suggests the range first formed over a billion years ago, researchers tell the journal Nature.

The Gamburtsevs are important because they are thought to be the location where the ice sheet we know today initiated its march across Antarctica.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15749757

[xchrom]

1. recommend

[klook]

2. Very cool - thanks (n/t)

[AlecBGreen]

3. NOOOO!

I live in the Blue Ridge and I always love telling my students we are next to the oldest mountains in the world. If this is true about Antarctica's mountains... :(

[MisterP]

4. great, they found the Mountains of Madness

[Odin2005]

5. Antarctica and North America were attatched to each other 1 billion years ago...

...as part of the super-continent of Rodinia. I wonder if these mountains are a continuation of the Grenville Orogeny in North America.