Its definitely an indication that toward the end of the Cretaceous, [plesiosaurs] managed to expand their feeding repertoire, Schulp says. After sending the camera down into the river, the team was surprised to learn that the cavern looked drastically different from what they had predicted. The finding waspublished Mondayin Frontiers in Marine Science. The tail of a 99-million-year-old dinosaur was found entombed in amber in 2016, an unprecedented discovery that has blown away scientists. An illustration shows an elasmosaur swimming through rough waters. A fossil from Antarctica is now the heaviest known animal in this group of prehistoric marine reptiles. Experts have long suspected that there is a vast network of rivers, lakes and estuaries underneath Antarctica, but until now these features have been poorly studied. The video has recorded nearly 300,000 views, sparking fierce debate among conspiracy theorists online. It involved a civilization led by 10-12 foot tall "Pre-Adamites" with elongated skulls. In the meantime, North American paleontologists have been caught in a catch-22. Old cells hang around as we age, doing damage to the body. Regardless, sometimes you might get lucky and find some Antarctica mythical creatures. I did say there were some scary facts about Antarctica! They used jackhammers, rock saws and chisels at a punishing 4200 metres to unearth the dinosaur, which represents a new genus and species. Most of the 45,000 meteorites found in Antarctica over the past century have only weighed a few grams, The Independent noted. . Lol. One of Earth's loneliest volcanoes holds an extraordinary secret. Shocking Rituals From The Cannibal Indian Aghori Monks, 6 Incredible Europe Contiki Tours to Go On, 74 Underrated and Off The Beaten Path Places To Visit, How to Get From Tirana Airport to the City, 9 Easy Ways To Repurpose Podcast Content In 2023. Saturday, 4th March 2023See today's front and back pages, download the newspaper, order back issues and use the historic Daily Express newspaper archive. (University of Tasmania) Despite the frigid temperatures, Williams estimated that the ocean was generating more than 1,000 to 1,500 watts per square. Antarctica is still a relatively unexplored area on our planet. An. The scientists found the secret subterranean habitat tucked away beneath the Larsen Ice Shelf a massive, floating sheet of ice attached to the eastern coast of the Antarctic peninsula that famously birthed the world's largest iceberg in 2021. Most of these magnificent ice giants are either snow-capped and white, or have a clear turquoise color. Pterosaurs were the first vertebrates to take to the skies. NASA Found a Manhattan-Sized Cavern in Antarctica, 60 Scientists Are Trying to Block the Sun, giant underground cavern in the glacier almost as big as Manhattan, map out glaciers and ice sheets in three dimensions, Your Privacy Choices: Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads. But now, scientists have finally unearthed the heaviest known elasmosaur, an ancient aquatic reptile that swam the seas of the Cretaceous period alongside the dinosaurs. There are not, nor. [If] the organisms evolved to live beneath ice shelves, they may provide us with a molecular clock that can be used to gauge past climate driven changes in Antarctic ice., The discovery shows that life can exist in environments where science suggests it should not: There are still things that we have to learn, Griffiths said. The massive explosion caused pressure waves that rang Earth's atmosphere like a bell, and sensors the researchers had placed on the ice's surface recorded similar pressure waves moving through the underground chamber. The international science expedition is slowly making its way through the Antarctica's sea ice en route to the Ross Sea. Which travel companies promote harmful wildlife activities? The main reference fossil for Cryodrakon belonged to an individual pterosaur that had a roughly 16-foot wingspan. Rare dragon-scale ice found in Antarctica. There are numerous conspiracy theories regarding Antarctica, and we wont get into them (though some are hilarious). More info. Antarctica is an ice covered continent. H.P. Taissa Rodrigues, a paleontologist at Brazils Federal University of Esprito Santo who wasnt involved with the study, says that taking thin sections of Cryodrakon bones could reveal how the pterosaur grew from hatchling to adult. But if you empty and refill the tray each night, you get so much more," Williams said in a statement. "It is a reminder about just how connected our whole planet is. Thwaites holds back a large portion of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and a handful of nearby glaciers; if Thwaites disappears, we could see an additional eight feet of sea level rise from these sources, on top of the two feet from Thwaites itself. The researchers also unexpectedly discovered that the water column underground split into four or five distinct layers of water flowing in opposite directions. With its ends broken off, that vertebra had avoided identification for years: Paleontologists had even once tentatively described it as a leg bone. The flying reptile had a wingspan of at least 16 feet and may have grown to a wingspan of up to 33 feet, the size of its relative Quetzalcoatlus northropi. A National Geographic team has made the first ascent of the remote Mount Michael, looking for a lava lake in the volcanos crater. Gear-obsessed editors choose every product we review. The excavation finally finished in 2017, yielding a substantial portion of the animals skeleton, which OGorman and his colleagues describe in their recent paper in Cretaceous Research. Video shows discovery of sea-sponges living nearly half a mile beneath Antarctica ice. Sea Pigs H.P. (Would the dinosaurs have died out if not for that asteroid? Crew-6 commander Stephen Bowen and pilot Warren "Woody" Hoburg, flanked by cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev and United Arab Emirates flier Sultan Alneyadi, planned to strap . Heres the science.). Sometimes the ice freezes into these beautiful ornate patterns reminiscent of dragon scales. Maybe were being too harsh here after all, this is just a satellite image were talking about. The Southern Hemisphereat least the plesiosaurscould definitely use some attention, he says. This sea monster definitely fits the description of scary things found in Antarctica! Pictured near Deception Island (how convenient!) We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you've consented to and to improve our understanding of you. Dragonflies are widely spread throughout the world and can be found on every continent except Antarctica. While it is most likely some kind of big whale species, it still has a menacing, creepy air to it. The different colorings can actually be simply explained as frozen meltwater (blue), sediment (black) or algae (green) that were trapped while the iceberg was forming. It was discovered in 1986 by the South African Speleological Association. Dragon skin occurs when strong "katabatic" winds downslope winds that exist only over icy regions continually lift the polynya's surface ice, subsequently freezing the water below, according. Some of these Antarctica scary facts have simple explanations, others not so much. MUST-HAVE: Before you head out on your trip, make sure you have travel insurance. In a bizarre video posted this week, YouTuber MrMBB333 said the remains in a remote region of Antarctica may have belonged to a prehistoric beast. By The Siberian Times reporter . OGorman, who was five years old when the fossil was discovered, went on the first of these trips starting in 2012. These things turned out to be over a ton of fossils on the James Ross Island, ranging from 71 to 67 million years old. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Like other members of the shergottite-nakhlite-chassignite (SNC) group of meteorites, ALH84001 is thought to have originated on Mars.However, it does not fit into any of the previously . In the past 15 years, paleontologists have found more types of azhdarchids in France, Morocco, Kazakhstan, Hungary, Romania, and elsewhere, giving a much better reference for diversity within this pterosaur group. Copyright 2023 Anita Hendrieka. One user said: "What looks like hands, fingers and feet and toes is whats hidden in its webbing. And work on the bones unearthed over the past few decades has just begun; now that they are housed in a museum, OGorman says there is a lot of other research that can be done on this ancient specimen. The video was titled 'Antarctica Melting Ice MAY have revealed ANCIENT skeletal remains fully INTACT! It took decades of struggling with the weather on a small, desolate island off the Antarctic Peninsula. In order to survive, the organisms would have to feed on floating material from other animals or plants, because it is impossible for plants to photosynthesize in the sunless seawater. It is barren, cold and almost seems like it is from another world, so it would make sense that if a UFO were to land on Earth with the hope of going undiscovered, that's where it'd park, and it turns out, that just might have happened.. A researcher examining satellite maps of the continent uncovered what they claim is a UFO, and sent the discovery . Slowly, over time, Antarctica befriended Bizzard, and found out her history. You can unsubscribe at any time. ", One viewer noted: Seals dont have back legs.". The scientists will continue to study the newfound subsurface ecosystem and hope to learn more about how the nutrients in the water are cycled through Antarctica's underground water networks to support the abundance of life that lives there. A mans world? Weird Google Earth images appear to show a giant "dome" rammed in the ice and it's sent conspiracy theorists wild. It's thought both types of stationary animals are types of sponges or are related to sponges, but scientists did not expect to find them beneath the ice shelf, in pitch-blackness and hundreds of miles from the coast. The team's research has more important ends in mind, but the images of dragon ice are a reminder that there is beauty to be found even in the harshest regions on the planet. The formation may be . If you asked a friend, it would probably be the thing that sunk the Titanic in that famous DeCaprio movie. What we find by visiting the coordinates 7200' 36.00'' S, 168 34' 40.00'' E is a mysterious face in the ice - seemingly complete with two eyes, a nose, and a mouth. When the researchers sent a camera down through the icy tunnel and into the cavern, hundreds of tiny, blurry flecks in the water obscured the video feed. What is wind chill, and how does it affect your body? The difference is that you can actually see something resembling them on Google Earth (coordinates 795839.25S 815732.21W). Because the Canadian remains make up a partial skeleton, Habibs colleague Hone had enough material to place the pterosaur on the azhdarchid family tree. "The climate is changing, and some key focal points are yet to be understood by science," Steven said. According to flat-earthers, Antarctica is actually a thick wall about 30 to 60 meters (100 to 200 ft.) high that surrounds our planet. The researchers had expected that the roof of the chamber would be smooth and flat. The pterosaurs bones have been known to scientists for nearly three decades, but it has only now been confirmed as its own genus, researchers announced on Tuesday in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. If you make a purchase through these links, at no extra cost to you, I will earn a small commission (for which I am very grateful). ", The team arrived above the buried river just in time to make another interesting observation. . Youd hardly expect them to come in stripes as well. Live Science is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Ice that looks like a dragon's scales may sound like something from an episode of "Game of Thrones," but researchers recently observed the rare type of sea ice known as "dragon skin" in Antarctica. The climate of Antarctica can vary depending on where you are and the time of the season. I always think back to Alien vs. With 170 of its 300-odd bones preserved, this scientifically important but privately owned skeleton is currently at the Museum fr Naturkunde in Berlin, Germany. Maybe one day you can work, and the next day you cannot because you have a snowstorm, OGorman says. As detailed below the claim that the video shows a real dragon inside . Unfortunately for any arachnophobes out there, Antarctica does have spiders, sort of. During this brutal interaction between the polar ocean and atmosphere, the seawater freezes as freshwater ice, according to the researchers. Heres how it works. The geologists were more than 150 miles from the open ocean when they bored a hole through the 3,000-foot-thick ice with a hot-water drill and lowered a coring device and a video camera into the dark seawater below it. Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, Many dragonflies are beautifully colored with greens, reds, yellows and blues. Kacey Deamer is a journalist for Live Science, covering planet earth and innovation. I don't think it's a sea lion.". Heres the technology that helped scientists find itand what it may have been used for. ", Largest fish nursery discovered beneath Weddell Sea in Antarctica, 'Giant MRI of Antarctica' reveals 'fossil seawater' under ice sheet, Rare wispy ice formations streak across the sea near Antarctica in beautiful satellite image. The seas around Antarctica are rich in marine (sea-living) animals, ranging from microscopic plankton to the largest animal ever to live on Earth, the blue whale. Using special radars, a British team of specialists discovered the tunnels while flying over West Antarctica. The team drilled down around 1,640 feet (500 meters) below the ice's surface using a powerful hot-water hose to reach the underground chamber. This agreement was introduced in 1959 and has been endorsed signed by twelve countries including the United States, Russia, Japan and Australia, among others. The wreck of Endurance has been found in the Antarctic, 106 years after the historic ship was crushed in pack ice and sank during an expedition by the explorer Ernest Shackleton. Why wetlands are so critical for life on Earth, Rest in compost? At the time, though, he didnt have the resources to excavate the fossil find, but he informed researchers in Argentina about the discovery. Scientists have found microplasticssmall plastic debris about the size of a sesame seedin freshly fallen snow in Antarctica for the first time. The stripes color can be blue, black, or green. Why wetlands are so critical for life on Earth, Rest in compost? They determined that the tunnels were most likely the result of meltwater flowing underneath the ice shelf. The remains of a dinosaur described as the "closest thing we have to a real-life dragon" has been unveiled in . The find came months after NASA successfully destroyed a 530-foot-wide . With such a young history of Antarctic exploration, it is no wonder that there are still many strange things about Antarctica that remain mysterious to this day. Thats awesome, Ryan, thanks a lot for sharing. Its amazing, she says, just to see how far were going., Copyright 1996-2015 National Geographic SocietyCopyright 2015-2023 National Geographic Partners, LLC. By KAI GENG This caught the team off guard, as they had not expected to find any type of life this far below the icy surface. But again, as with many weird things found in Antarctica, the explanation is much simpler. True to their name, the Antarctic Icefish lives in the icy cold waters of the Arctic and has icy-looking blood to match. Flat-earthers believe that the North Pole is at the center of the world while the South Pole surrounds the Earth. However, sceptics were quick to claim that the remains look like a seal. Tell us below which one of theweird things in Antarctica you are the most shocked about! We dont have a skull, but we have a lot of pieces of the specimen, OGorman says. Photograph by Stocktrek Images, Inc. / Alamy. Satellite photos showed an unusual groove in the ice shelf close to where it met with the land, and researchers identified the peculiar feature as a subsurface river, which they described in a statement (opens in new tab). What if we could clean them out? Vostok Lake of Antarctica is the largest subglacial lake in the world. Discovered in 2010 in Montanas famed Hell Creek Formation of the late Cretaceous, the 40-foot-long fossil took four years to excavate and prepare. Scientists aboard the U.S. icebreaker research vessel Nathaniel B. Palmer recently sailed to an Antarctic polynya areas of open water that act as ice factories to study the process of ice formation during the autumn-winter season. The cavern was also much wider nearer the roof. Dec 29, 2021, 6:55 AM PST. An international team is currently trying to finish the job. Their eyes are compound -they consist of 24,000 ommatidia (or tiny eyes). ", Another remarked: "Google search for images of seal skeleton shows a pretty good match. Lovecraft would have probably loved to see this interesting creature. By Avery Thompson Published: Jan 31, 2019 The flying reptile was mostly head and neckand had at least a 16-foot wingspan, if not bigger. Schulp has worked on some plesiosaurs from the Netherlands, but he says the aquatic reptiles are very different in the Southern Hemisphere. One such thing is a series of 820-foot tunnels. Antarctica is unlike the rest of the planet. If youve seen Jurassic World, its the giant whale-like colossus from the feeding show. After completing her undergraduate degree in journalism and environmental studies at Ithaca College, Kacey pursued her master's in Specialized Journalism: Climate Change at USC Annenberg. Antarctica is ringed with more than half a million square miles of ice shelves the Filchner-Ronne is one of the largest, covering more than 160,000 square miles but boreholes have revealed an area of seafloor beneath them only the size of a tennis court. There are some people out there that would do anything to get their hands on some good scotch that's over a hundred years old. When it was discovered in 1911 by an Australian geologist, the explanation he came up with was that microscopic red algae gave the waterfall its coloring. By Dustin Nelson. But what was most intresting about her was that she could see Antarctica, something no other dragon could do. The melting ice in Antarctica has revealed a skeleton of a mysterious creature - and the network believes it is a dinosaur. They published . This nearly whole, deep-black skull belongs to the most complete specimen of Tyrannosaurus rex on display in Europe, an individual nicknamed Tristan Otto. The egg case belongs to the class Clitellata worm, species of which are long extinct which makes it quite an extraordinary finding. The Nathaniel B. Palmer expedition is currently at "ground zero" of a katabatic wind event, Williams said, with hurricane-strength gusts topping 75 miles per hour (120 km/h). Nearly all of these have been found since 1976. Geologists taking sediment cores from the seafloor beneath the giant Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf on the southern edge of Antarcticas Weddell Sea discovered what biologists believe are types of sponge. Find out which creatures belonged in this group, how they grew to incredible sizes, and how they've captivated both scientists and storytellers alike. Nearly 42,000 meteorites have been found in Antarctica by government funded expeditions, mainly by the U.S. and Japan. Most of them were remnants of ancient marine creatures, or even the ancestors of modern-day ducks. A lot of marine life would have needed to thrive there to satisfy the appetite of such a large creature, so the fact that these animals continued to exist so late in the Cretaceous adds to the evidence that the aquatic world, at least, was doing just fine right up until the sudden mass extinction. Multiple expeditions in the 19th century managed to reach the Antarctic Peninsula, and in 1911 Roald Amundsens party were the first people to reach the South Pole. Thanks to this nearly Manhattan-size gap in the ice, the entire glacier along with the surrounding ice sheet will likely disappear much more quickly. While dinosaurs roamed the Earth, marine reptiles in the order Plesiosauria swam in our planet's prehistoric oceans. All rights reserved, dug up from Canadas Dinosaur Provincial Park in 1992, Fossil Pictures Capture the Mystery of Dinosaurs. Jun 26, 2021 12 The discovery of a huge fossilised skull that was wrapped up and hidden in a Chinese well nearly 90 years ago has forced scientists to rewrite the story of human evolution. The scientists found the secret subterranean habitat tucked away beneath the Larsen Ice Shelf a massive, floating sheet of ice attached to the eastern coast of the Antarctic peninsula that. Fact Check: A video in circulation online since early 2015 claims to show a Real Dragon found Alive inside a Cave, caught on Camera. .css-3wjtm9{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-thickness:0.125rem;text-decoration-color:#1c6a65;text-underline-offset:0.25rem;color:inherit;-webkit-transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;}.css-3wjtm9:hover{color:#595959;text-decoration-color:border-link-body-hover;}None of these are doing well, but one of themthe Thwaites Glacier in West Antarcticais rapidly crumbling. That guy is big! Schulp says from looking at photos of the bones. The discovery of what appear to be sponges in the pitch-black seawater beneath almost half a mile of ice has biologists baffled. Called the ugliest creature beneath the waves, the scotoplanes (scientific name) are what you get when you combine the terror of Cthulhu with the plump, pink and short-legged appearance of a piglet. Rare find'. "But what is clear is that great changes are afoot.". She has previously reported for Mother Jones, the Reporter's Committee for Freedom of the Press, Neon Tommy and more. While some previously known Aristonectes have weighed about 11 tons or so, most other elasmosaurs only come in at around five tons. Tullbergia seems to have persisted in the same place for . Work could only happen for a few weeks in January and early February, and some years the dig didnt happen at all because of conditions and limited resources. Please be respectful of copyright. This information is extremely useful to scientists because how quickly a glacier melts depends a great deal on whats going on near that bedrock. The mysterious skeleton of a creature has been found on Google Maps in Antarctica in footage which has since gone viral. He studied Marine Biology at the University of Exeter (Penryn campus) and after graduating started his own blog site "Marine Madness," which he continues to run with other ocean enthusiasts. One place I have not yet managed to get to maybe one day. (GiMa38 / CC BY-SA 4.0 ) Accounts of Reptilian Monsters in Modern-Day New Guinea . All 154 people on board survived after being rescued by nearby vessels. These skeletons may have the answer, Scientists are making advancements in birth controlfor men, Blood cleaning? Life finds a way, the actor Jeff Goldblum playing scientist Ian Malcolm declared in the 1993 movie Jurassic Park.. Lovecraft would have probably loved to see this interesting creature. I recommend either SafetyWing or World Nomads. Even in Antarctica, there were lots of happy elasmosaurs, Schulp says. Unauthorized use is prohibited. But I would be much more conservative in saying its Cryodrakon, because, yeah, theres no features on that at all.. It was then kept secret from every other person in the world by calling it "The Pyramid" and then use that name on every . Long COVID patients turn to unproven treatments, Why evenings can be harder on people with dementia, This disease often goes under-diagnosedunless youre white, This sacred site could be Georgias first national park, See glow-in-the-dark mushrooms in Brazils other rainforest, 9 things to know about Holi, Indias most colorful festival, Anyone can discover a fossil on this beach. The Maori monster Taniwha lives in the ocean but also lurks in the rivers, lakes, or watery caves of New Zealand. The wall stops everything from falling over the edge of the Earth. DRAGON FOUND is the first book in The Dragon Queen series and reminded me (in a good way) of Anne McCaffrey's Dragons of Pern - albeit a whole lot steamier and with more political backstabbing and intrigue. Heres how it works. The new year once started in Marchhere's why, Jimmy Carter on the greatest challenges of the 21st century, This ancient Greek warship ruled the Mediterranean, How cosmic rays helped find a tunnel in Egypt's Great Pyramid, Who first rode horses? After a week, you get one tray of ice cubes. The MrMBB333 host told viewers: "What youre about to see here is intact, very large skeletal remains. "Antarcticais a very mysterious place. Know more about this news here by reading this article now! Science correspondent Scientists drilling off the coast of West Antarctica have found the fossil remains of forests that grew in the region 90 million years ago - in the time of the dinosaurs. Their arrival marked the completion of the Xuelong 2's maiden voyage.Along with her older sister, the Xuelong, China's newest Polar Class 3 icebreaker had steamed more than 70,000 nautical miles over the course of her expedition to Antarctica. The underside of the river's icy roof looked nothing like what the researchers were expecting. There have been all sorts of things found in the arctic, from underground lakes and ancient fossils to prehistoric skeletons and enormous tunnels. NASA Found a Manhattan-Sized Cavern in Antarctica The cavern sits where nearly 14 billion tons of ice used to be, all of which melted in the last few years. However, despite being prominent in the satellite images, the groove initially eluded surface detection, Stevens said. "I would guess this is somewhere in the region of 15 to 20ft. "We will spend the next two weeks taking advantage of quiet periods when the katabatic winds drop off to observe the increase in salinity of the shelf waters below polynyas as brine rejected during sea-ice formation rains down to depths below 1,000 meters [3,280 feet]," Williams said. Unauthorized use is prohibited. Perhaps the most dragon-like mythological creatures found in Aboriginal mythology are the Rainbow Serpents. Footage of the oddity was uploaded on the YouTube channel of MrMBB333 who regularly shares weird . The "dragon," which roamed the earth 160 million years ago, has a long pointed tail, wings and sharp, protruding pointed teeth. Coat of arms of the Hungarian Bthory family which depicts a dragon. The Dragon's Breath cave is the largest non subglacial lake in the world. Was an ancient species of dragon found living in Antarctica? The team thinks the newly described heavyweight belongs to the genus Aristonectes, a group whose species have been seen as outliers to other elasmosaurs, since they differed so much from fossilized specimens discovered in the U.S. It's a rare sight, but that's in part because winter inAntarctica is a bitch and there aren't many people hanging around throwing parties. They were some kind of weird plesiosaurs that nobody knew.. New York, Allan Hills 84001 (ALH84001) is a fragment of a Martian meteorite that was found in the Allan Hills in Antarctica on December 27, 1984, by a team of American meteorite hunters from the ANSMET project. In the icy badlands of Alberta, paleontologists have found a "frozen dragon": a new genus of pterosaur that once soared over the heads of dinosaurs with a wingspan that stretched at least 16. Visit our corporate site (opens in new tab). Two key advances offered a way off the Quetzalcoatlus merry-go-round. "This changes our current understanding and models of these environments," Stevens said. It would have flying in a landscape that would have been reasonably temperate but a hell of a lot warmer than central Alberta is now.. It takes a little more effort and logistics in the first place, and not just everyone stumbles into those fossils, agrees Anne Schulp, vertebrate paleontologist at Utrecht University in the Netherlands and the Naturalis Biodiversity Center who was not involved in the research.