/data/photo/2021/03/19/60547622d3e77.jpg?fit=%2C&ssl=1)
KOMPAS.com- Life Greenland in the past it was not like what we see today. Now maybe Greenland is a snow-covered area icing, but millions of years ago, it turned out that most of the territory was filled plant.
Quoting from New Atlas, Friday (19/3/2021) the evidence was found by scientists from the University of Vermont.
Scientists create fossil discoveries plants under the Greenland ice sheet as deep as 1.4 km.
While drilling, researchers found plant matter such as twigs, moss, and ice cores.
This suggests that the island was ice-free millions of years ago or so.
Also read: New Record, Greenland Loses 586 Billion Tons of Ice Sheet This Year
But with the findings plant fossils This research also shows us that Greenland is more vulnerable to climate change than we expected.
“Icing usually destroys everything. But what we found was a fragile plant structure, perfectly preserved. It’s a time capsule of what used to live in Greenland that we can’t find anywhere else, “said Andrew Christ, author of the study from the University of Vermont, English.
In their study, researchers studied the isotope ratios of aluminum and beryllium, which can reveal how long the sample was buried.
Luminescence studies show when sediment was last exposed to light, radiocarbon dating of wood shows its age.
Also read: Greenland’s Ice Sheet is Melting, Scientists Say It Will Not Recover
Meanwhile, oxygen isotopes in the ice reveal that the original rainfall fell at a much lower altitude than the current ice sheet.
Taken together, the analysis shows that large parts of Greenland have been free of ice in the last million years or so and may have been covered in vegetation such as trees.
Finding plants buried in the ice is interesting and is able to reveal the life of Greenland in the past.
However, researchers also say there are worrying implications for the findings.
Also read: Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheet Melt More, This Is The Impact
These findings suggest that Greenland’s ice sheet is more vulnerable to climate change than previously thought.
That means it’s a bad thing. This is because if the ice sheet melts completely, it will raise sea levels by up to 7.2 meters.
The bad news is, a recent report found that the ice sheet has lost 3.8 trillion tonnes of ice since 1992 and that the rate is accelerating.
Research on the Greenland environment filled with plants millions of years ago has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Also read: Greenland’s Ice Sheet Melts Unusually, This Is Its Impact on the World
– .
