What can be under those glaciers?

Its a sad fact that most of the earth glaciers are melting at record pace and nothing positive about that.Since i read in the news up in Alaska that they found a military plane from WW2 that was lost for like 60 years found in a former glacier.Dont you think that other stuff will be shown such as preserved mammals,dinasours,maybe lost cities,caves etc?Just makes u think what can be under there is kinda awesome.

[edit on 25-5-2008 by alienstar]

While I remain skeptical of global warming, I do agree that it would be amazing to find out what is under all of that ice. The possibilities are endless and could provide numerous answers to questions that have been asked for thousands of years.

reply to post by alienstar

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Well yea... hopefuly we will see some interesting stuff soon enough. But Im in the same boat as BennyHill.... Im still very skeptical of global warming but I still think it would be great fun to find whats under all that ice.

-fm

I believe most glaciers are fairly modern - but I'll check, they should date back only to the last ice age.

Some interesting things have come out of the ice in the last few decades.

[edit on 25/5/08 by Hanslune]

I remember several years back a special on the Discovery Channel, "Raising the Mammoth"...found a baby mammoth perfectly preserved in permafrost (in Siberia, I think)...

So, yeah!! Now, you've got me thinking......

I mean they did a core sample shown on a discovery show once they drilled down like 12 feet i think.If i remember correctly didnt they date the ice millions of years at some places?

I believe the oldest cores they have go back about 750,000 years. It is an anarctic one. The core goes back 740,000 years and reveals 8 previous glacial cycles. The latest of these ended (or the warming period began) about 14,000 years ago.

Couldn't find estimated ages for the valley type glaciers, thou. Must research more!

Besides several lost hunters we may get some interesting animal remains out of the ice and permafrost. Perhaps even Mr. Scott and his unfortunate gentlemen.

Well this is what is literally under the arctics glaciers;

"Giant "blisters" containing water that rapidly expand and contract have been mapped beneath the Antarctic ice sheet.

Fed by a complex network of rivers, the subglacial reservoirs force the overlying ice to rise and fall.

By tracking these changes with Nasa's Ice Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) scientists were able to map the extent of the subglacial plumbing";

news.bbc.co.uk...


As the ice caps recede though the thing i am most interested in is the fossil rich areas that will become available for digging as the ice retreats. At various points during the dinosaur times, the permanent ice caps hadn't formed yet at the poles and Antarctica was warm enough to sustain cold arctic forests- we know that dinosaurs and ancient reptiles once lived in these forests however we don't know a great deal about them or their environment due to the sparsity of fossils and area's that we can actually dig.
So it would be interesting to see what new fossil sites and their fossils become available if the ice retreats enough .

Very kool

For some reason I see the mental picture of a cold, pist off graduate student sitting at the melting end of a glacier - holding a camera, cell phone and a deep hatred of the academic who put them on this duty.