Hidden on a secluded island in the Canadian Arctic, scientists have made a remarkable discovery – the remnants of an ancient glacier that could be more than a million
In 2009, Fortier and his team were investigating a buried fossilized forest on Bylot Island in Canada’s Nunavut Territory when they unexpectedly came across areas affected by recent landslides triggered by permafrost thawing. These landslides exposed transparent layers of ice buried just above the fossil forest several meters underground. Radiocarbon dating revealed that this ice was over 60,000 years old – a surprising revelation for Fortier.
Furthermore, within sediment layers above the ice, researchers identified magnetic mineral alignments indicating Earth’s magnetic field reversal around 770,000 years ago – suggesting that the glacier is at least that age. Previous studies dated the fossil forest beneath it to approximately 2.8 to 2.4 million years ago, setting a maximum age limit for the ice.
Fortier describes this discovery as proof of permafrost’s resilience. Despite projections indicating widespread permafrost thawing by century-end due to climate change, this preserved glacier has endured through warmer interglacial
2025-01-21 09:00:00
Source from www.sciencenews.org
