冰河时期到底是怎样?英国使用3D扫描进行调查

Ice age maps: the North Sea’s hidden landscape

冰河时代地图：北海的隐藏景观

Tens of thousands of years ago much of Britain and western Europe was sheathed in ice. Those vast glacial sheets left scars on the Earth, the last traces of their presence. But as the millennia passed, even those marks were buried beneath the Earth’s surface by layers of sediment. Now British Antarctic Survey researchers have used sound waves to create detailed 3D scans of ice-age landscapes, hundreds of metres beneath the North Sea’s floor.

The images, published in the journal Geology, reveal a spectacular network of miles-wide channels: the ghosts of ancient sub-glacial rivers. As temperatures rose and the ice sheets thawed, meltwaters carved these so-called “tunnel valleys”. Harsh conditions in Greenland and Antarctica make data on deglaciation difficult to obtain. For climate scientists, these undersea MRI scans can offer understanding into how melting sea ice behaves. A glimpse, then, not only back in time but also into a future, warmer world.

Tens of thousands of years ago much of Britain and western Europe was sheathed in ice. Those vast glacial sheets left scars on the Earth, the last traces of their presence. But as the millennia passed, even those marks were buried beneath the Earth’s surface by layers of sediment. Now British Antarctic Survey researchers have used sound waves to create detailed 3D scans of ice-age landscapes, hundreds of metres beneath the North Sea’s floor.