Antarctica Was NOT Always Frozen 🤔 #interesting

[argkitsune]

TikTok users learning the Earth used to look different

[МихаилАнтипин-хм]

"Antarctica is going to be frozen yet it just doesn't know it yet"🧑‍🎄🧑‍🎄🧑‍🎄🧑‍🎄

[moondaddy]

bigger explanation: Antarctica transformed from a rainforest to a frozen desert over millions of years due to a combination of geological and climatic changes. Initially part of the supercontinent Gondwana, Antarctica drifted southward due to plate tectonics, moving it closer to the South Pole. As the Earth's climate cooled, particularly around 34 million years ago, and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels declined, the continent became isolated by the formation of the Southern Ocean and the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. This isolation prevented warmer waters from reaching Antarctica, leading to the formation of ice sheets and turning the once-forested land into the icy, barren continent we see today.


I didn't copy pasted🤥😊

[tundradeer]

Fun fact: since we still have a large frozen portion of the planet (Antarctica, glaciers, ect) it means we are technically still inside, but at the tail end of, the last ice age.

[Cyn]

That's because it wasn't always located at the South Pole. Plate tectonics moved it to where it is now.

[МихаилАнтипин-хм]

Antarctica with no penguins is a disaster

[germanyhamburger]

We are currently living in the Holocene epoch.

Few are aware of the fact that, despite rising temperatures, we are still living in an ice age from a geological perspective.
We are now in the Cenozoic Ice Age.

[niydfass]

I think you forgot a massive detail that the reason why it wasn't frigid was because it was closer to the equator, before it moved down south to the pole from plate tetonics

[JoshAble-kedi]

They've found several things that lead many scientists to the theory that humans lived on Antarctica before the climate changed.
1) Several old maps that show the land mass with zero snow.
2) Writings that talk of a known time when there was zero snow there.
3) A few scientists and adventurers have come out speaking about artifacts & areas with ancient developments found there but afterwards they were told none of the discoveries could be aired to media outlets.

[davidirvine]

The Sahara used to be lush too, and not even that long ago (global scale wise)

[tjdinoshark]

I already knew this.
One of the most famouse creatures discovered was "crylophosaurus"

[Hoodperd]

Things like this make me appreciate historians even more because Antarctica was still really cold when it was first discovered back in 1920 and the fact they find out Antarctica wasn't as cold millions of years ago as it is right now is so mindblowing to me. Our brain's intelligence is something else.

[RobertSmith-ruck]

Antarctica went cold like Kim Jung Un's heart.

[Ag_Videos]

Dang, Antarctica wasn't really chill back then.

[CcVal-ld]

Imagine discovering old buildings/structures and finding out we arent the og's we thought we were

[DeadpoolE]

Hey, Paleontologist here.

So that's a pretty nasty and kinky summation of events at lightspeed skipping over some context.

Like with the other continents, Antarctica used to be part of a supercontinent known as Pangea, which lasted from the Permian until the end of the Triassic. By the time of the Jurassic, Pangea split into two separate continents - Lauraisa in rhe north and Gondwanaland in the south, which Antarctica was a part of. Antarctica was relatively warm, even at the time of the Cretaceous, and still was connected to South America and Australia by this time, though it did experience routine seasons thanks in part to it being further north compared to nowadays. It wouldn't be until 34 million years ago in the Eocene when Antarctica finally was put on ice for good. This is because by around this time, global CO2 levels were sharply declining, causing temperatures to drop in response. With this decrease in temperatures meant a decrease in sea levels and the increasing presence of glaciers forming over time. It wouldn't be until 13 million years ago that Antarctica was fully covered in ice and snow.

Also, the last slide is misleading. It doesn't show life from 90 million years ago. Dicynodonts like that were a Triassic phenomenon, meaning this depicts a scene from over 200 mya.

[midniteraptor]

A tropical paradise transforming into a frozen wasteland honestly sounds kinda sad. This isn't to say that Antarctica isn't beautiful, because it is very beautiful and I would love to see it with my own eyes someday. It just feels like we lost something, even though it happened so long ago and we never experienced it. I don't know why I can get nostalgic for things I never had lol

[BorisEdiacarov-uisk]

Small correction: Antarctica didn't freeze during the ice ages, but millions of years before it around, as you said, 30-ish million years ago.
The Ice ages began only a few hundred thousand years ago.

Otherwise great explanation

I also encourage y'all to watch "Spirits of the Ice Forest". It's an episode from an old documentary about the life of the dinosaurs that lived in Antarctica when it was still green

[Kittoson]

I actually learned that it wasn’t always cold from another YouTuber.

I never gave it enough thought to really think about what it used to be like before.

Miniminutesman taught me about this topic though

[MrJuno]

“Antarctica is frozen, it just doesn’t know it yet.”