antarctica

We have been mapping Antarctica for decades. We have just discovered that its largest basins form a single tectonic “fan”

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For decades, researchers have mapped the frozen continent, finding huge depressions and subglacial lakes that have left us in awe. Until now, these formations were studied as isolated pieces of a geological puzzle; However, a new study has turned this view on its head. The demonstration. This study has been published in Nature Geoscience and has just demonstrated that the great basins of East Antarctica are not independent accidents, but form part of a single, gigantic fan-shaped tectonic province. The tectonic fan. The research team, using a combination of subglacial topography, gravity and magnetism data, proposes that this entire vast region is the result of a distributed rotational extension process. To understand it, we can imagine the Earth’s crust in this area opening and stretching asymmetrically, unfolding as if it were a fan. This colossal tectonic movement makes East Antarctica one of the largest known examples of rotational extension in continental crust on the entire planet. The beginning. The origin of this continental scar is closely linked to the history of our planet, specifically to the tectonic phases linked to the fragmentation of the supercontinent Gondwana and the dramatic separation between Antarctica and Australia. As the land masses separated, the crust stretched and fractured, leaving this “bounced topography” that today lies hidden under miles of ice. Its importance. Beyond the undoubted geological and historical value, understanding this structure has a practical and urgent application, since Antarctica is the great thermostat of the Earth and its stability is key in the face of climate change. The topography beneath the Antarctic ice sheet acts as a mold that conditions absolutely everything that happens on the surface. This is seen, for example, in how the shape of bedrock controls the flow of today’s glaciers and determines how subglacial lake and basin systems are distributed. That is why, if we want to predict with mathematical precision how the Antarctic ice will respond to global warming and how it will flow towards the ocean, we need to know the tectonic “pipe” on which it rests to the millimeter. Its mystery. Although the article Nature Geoscience manages to unify structures as massive as the Wilkes and Aurora basins under the same theoretical framework, the authors maintain scientific caution. The exact age at which this fan province formed and the fine geodynamic mechanism that triggered it remain, to a large extent, open questions, and this means that work still needs to be done to find out exactly when the movements of the Antarctic crust will occur. Images | Tam Minton Nature In Xataka | Antarctica was practically the last corner of the Earth immune to touristification. That’s ending

The number of tourists to Antarctica has skyrocketed 1,000% in 30 years. There are those who believe that the real boom has not yet arrived

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The hantavirus crisis has served so that, at least for a few days, much of the planet remembered COVID-19 and what was exposed that there is a hyperconnected world and a changing climate to the expansion of pandemics. Also (even if only glancingly) to remember a phenomenon that has been gaining strength for years in a silent, discreet, but forceful way: the tourist exploitation from Antarctica. The MV Hondius was promoted like a cruise to remote destinations departing from Ushuaiastarting point also of the vast majority of ships traveling to the southern pole. He interest in Antarctica by the MV Hondius shipping company (Oceanwide Expeditions) is no coincidence. There are more and more signs that suggest that polo is becoming an important tourist asset… and (above all) on the rise. A percentage: 1,120%. Antarctica may be one of the most remote places on the planet, but that has not left it off the radar of the tourism. On the contrary. For some time the data of IAATOthe International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators, show that the region has never been busier. The annual balances may register slight fluctuations, but the curve they draw when the focus is opened and the last three decades are analyzed shows the growing popularity of the destination. The latest evidence has been provided The Vanguard in an article in which he leaves out a key fact: during the 2024 season, more than 122,000 people visited the continent, which represents an increase of 1,120% compared to 30 years ago, when the statistics did not exceed 10,00 visits. Is there more data? Yes. To be more precise, the last balance from IAATO shows that if in the 1993-94 season the number of disembarked passengers barely reached 8,000, in 2013-14 it already exceeded 27,700 and in 2023-24 it was close to 78,900. In parallel, the number of those who only travel on cruise ships, without setting foot on land, has also been increasing. If in 2013-14 there were 9,700 people, last season they exceeded 43,200. Looking ahead to the 2024-2025 season the body calculates a slight decrease in the number of travelers who do not get off the boat and an increase in those who do. The first would remain at 36,769, the second at 80,434. Added to these are 938 “deep field” visitors, as those who fly to the interior of the region or board a ship to explore the Antarctic Peninsula or the islands are called. USA, the big market. IAATO statistics allow us to go further and analyze, for example, the nationalities of travelers who stop in Antarctica. The Americans are in the lead, with 44.6% in 2023-24, followed far by the Australians and Chinese, who each take almost 8% of the pie. The British, Canadians, Germans, Argentines and Brazilians also stand out, although IAATO has identified visitors of more than 200 nationalities. As for what they do there, the vast majority (98%) of tourist trips focus on the Antarctic Peninsula during the southern summer season and They depart from Ushuaiasouth of Argentina. Activities offered upon arrival include zodiac trips, landings and (more rarely) kayaking, climbing or overnight stays. IAATO graph with the flow of visitors between 1993 and 2002. IAATO graph with the flow of visitors between 2011 and 2024. Looking to the future. The flow of tourists may have skyrocketed in recent decades, but could fall short in the coming years. At least that’s what the researchers who have just published believe. a study on “Antarctic tourism management” in Journal of Sustainable Tourism. In it, the team led by Dr. Valeria Senigaglia slips two pieces of information. First, verify the boom of visitors in the last 30 years: from less than 8,000 in 93/34 to more than 120,000 in the 2023/24 season. Second, he warns that if the model is not rethought, the number of tourists could quadruple in the next decade until reaching almost half a million people annually. “If the number of visitors grows at the average annual growth rate recorded between the 1992-1993 season and the 2023-2024 season (a constant annual growth rate of 14.0%), the total number of visitors is expected to almost quadruple in 10 years, reaching approximately 452,000 in the 2033-2034 season,” specify the paperwhich also recalls that approximately 65% ​​of the more than 120,000 tourists who currently take cruises to Antarctica travel on ships that allow disembarkation, operations that tend to concentrate at the same points. An invisible footprint. That Antarctica arouses curiosity and there are people who want to know it or even visit it is, a priori, nothing bad. The problem, like warn the authors of the report, is the impact that this growing flow of tourists can have on a particularly fragile ecosystem. Although all the details are taken care of during the landings and IAATO demand tourists not to touch or feed local wildlife or damage plants, their presence poses certain environmental risks. For example, Elie Poulin, from the University of Chile, warns in The Vanguard that tourism can unintentionally spread exotic species. It comes with someone transporting them without knowing it. “Widespread degradation”. “The risks are real. An invasive species of grass has established itself on one of Antarctica’s South Shetland Islands, while bird flu has reached the Subantarctic Islands, where it has had a devastating effect on the seal population,” warned Dana Bergstrom has long been an expert in Antarctic ecology. This is without taking into account the environmental footprint left by cruise ship traffic or frequent disembarkation in certain areas. “A major concern is that the cumulative impacts of tourism will interact with alterations in weather patterns, snowmelt, ocean currents and nutrient cycling caused by climate change, leading to widespread habitat degradation and declines in wildlife populations and diversity,” insist Senigaglia. Review the guidelines? The reality is that visiting Antarctica is still not the same as traveling to any other tourist destination on the planet. Since 1991 there has been a protocol of environmental protection of Antarctica that … Read more

Magnetic maps had been marking something strange under Antarctica for centuries. So we’ve started drilling to find it

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For years, magnetic maps of East Antarctica have shown something strange about the region from Princess Elizabeth Land: a large amplitude linear magnetic anomaly under kilometers of ice that runs along the coast parallel to the margin of the continent. It was something that satellites and planes could detect, but no one knew exactly what rock was producing it until now. Discovering it. If the problem is that this anomaly was under a large amount of ice, a team of researchers within the framework of a Russian-Chinese cooperation He has done the most logical thing to find what was happening: start drilling. What they have found after putting a large drill to work is not only a magnetic rock that gave that peculiar pattern, but it is the geological “scar” of an ancient island arc that collided with the continent almost 1,000 years ago, when the supercontinent was forming. Rodinia. A challenge. The study that includes this discovery focuses mainly on the Rayner tectonic province, an area that is geologically critical because it is considered a “mobile belt.” That is, it is a collision zone where ancient blocks of crust were crushed against each other. The problem with Antarctic geology is that almost everything they are interested in is buried, and in this case the team had to cross 541 meters of ice to be able to reach the rock that interested them. What did they find? What they took from the bottom of Antarctica was not common granite as can occur in other areas, but rather the core recovered is a mafic granulite. Something that is very important, since granulites are metamorphic rocks that have suffered infernal temperatures and pressures. After power analyze this rock So interesting, it was seen that this was what was causing the linear anomalies seen from space. And as we say, it is not a very normal stone, since it is rich in ferromagnetic minerals, capable of altering the magnetic field locally. Investigating Rodinia. Once with the sample in hand, the team applied geochemistry techniques and dating to be able to counterbalance these data with everything that was known in previous research. What was seen is that there was a great violent history behind it, since it was known that the rock was originally born as magma about 970 million years ago. From its birth, that rock was pushed into the depths and “cooked.” The data indicate that it was subjected to temperatures between 650 and 790 ºC and pressures equivalent to depths of 15 to 18 kilometers. In this way, the researchers’ conclusion is that this rock was part of a volcanic arc of islands like those of Japan. But the most interesting thing is that this arc was not originally in Antarctica, but was forcibly “stuck” against the ancient continent during a massive collision that gave rise to the formation of Rodinia. The Indian connection. To understand the magnitude of the find, you have to look beyond Antarctica, as geologists have long suspected that the Rayner Province in Antarctica and the Eastern Ghats Province in India They are twins separated at birth. And the new data reinforces this theory, since the conditions of “high temperature” metamorphism found in this drilling are almost identical to those documented in India. This leads us to conclude that 900 million years ago, the east coast of India and this part of Antarctica were joined, forming a huge mountain range created by the collision of tectonic plates. Images | 66 north In Xataka | In the United States there is an incredible river that does what seems impossible: defy the laws of gravity

We know that the Earth has been hit by 80,000 meteorites. For some reason, most end up in Antarctica

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If we look at the global statistics of finds of meteorites on our planet We may think that they are distributed homogeneously throughout the territory, but the reality is very different. Official data indicates that of the approximately 80,000 meteorites cataloged all over the world, more than 50,000 have been found in Antarctica… And this raises a big question: does Antarctica have something special about having so many meteorites? A contradiction. Although we talk about 60% of the meteorites that have been found on Earth come from Antarcticacollision theory tells us another. Specifically, physics, which tells us that meteorites fall randomly and uniformly throughout the planet, so Antarctica does not receive more impacts than the Sahara Desert or the Pacific Ocean. So… Why do we find so many meteorites on the frozen continent? The answer lies in a perfect combination of glaciologyvisual contrast and a natural “trap” that is now, ironically, being sabotaged by climate change. The conveyor belt theory. To understand why Antarctica is the great archive of the solar system, you have to understand how ice moves. And the secret is not in how the rocks fall, but in how the ice delivers them to humanity. To do this, we must go to glaciological models and studies from programs such as ANSMET, where they point out that Antarctica It is a real meteorite conveyor belt. The process. In this way, a meteorite when it falls inside the frozen continent buried deep in the ice sheet. Once here, the natural flow of the glaciers will push the ice that stores the rock inside from the center towards the coast. At certain points, the ice encounters barriers beneath the glaciers, such as hidden mountains that slow its flow and forces the ice to return to the surface. And this is where the famous katabatic winds come into play, which are truly fierce and dry with a force capable of eroding the upper layers of the ice from solid to gas. The result. It is what scientists call the ‘Meteorite Stranding Zone’ (MSZ) or blue ice areas. It is nothing more than the part of ice that has been worn away, but has not affected the rock it stored in any way. That is why over time, meteorites that fell thousands of years ago and traveled trapped in the depths of the ice now appear on the surface as if someone had put them there. A contrast trick. Logically, finding a meteorite among a pile of red ones can be somewhat complicated in our environment. But when we talk about a black rock on a white sheet like ice, the truth is that visually it is easy to find it. That is why this contrast is the best ally that meteorite searchers have. The preservation. But beyond the fact that finding a rock the size of a walnut in the middle of the jungle is a really complicated task, it must be taken into account that humid climates degrade the meteorite quickly. Something that does not happen in Antarctica, which is technically a polar desert. The dry environment it has acts like a real freezer which preserves the samples almost intact for millions of years. This allows scientists to recover not only the rock, but pristine information about the origins of the solar system. And that is why all these factors together make it more common to find more meteorites in this location than in others, and not because there is a predilection for falling here. An invisible threat. As pointed out a study published in Nature, we have a serious problem on the table: We are losing about 5,000 meteorites a year. Intuition would tell us that if the ice melts due to climate change, more rocks would emerge. But the opposite is true due to the thermal properties of the meteorites themselves. Being dark rocks (and many of them metallic with high thermal conductivity), they absorb solar radiation much more efficiently than the surrounding ice. Even at subzero temperatures, the rock heats up enough to melt the ice just below it. This causes the meteorite to sink and create a small pool of water that refreezes them, burying the rock out of sight of researchers or satellites. Thermal models suggest that this disproportionately affects iron meteorites, which are especially valuable for understanding planetary cores, causing us to have many more chondrite or rocky meteorites. Race against time. Humanity has so far managed to recover 23,000 meteorites, giving us a large cosmic library that allows us to better understand everything around us. The problem is that the clock is ticking, and the most important part of the archive is beginning to sink, so now the most important thing is to hurry up to get the most valuable meteorites for us. Images | Kamran Abdullayev henrique setim In Xataka | In 2011, a collector bought a meteorite in Morocco. It has turned out to be direct evidence of thermal water on Mars

the only insect in Antarctica has started eating something it shouldn’t

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We tend to think of Antarctica as the last bastion of naturebeing a desert of ice oblivious to everyday problems from the rest of civilization. But the reality is that that place is not free from problems We live in the warmest (and most populated) areas of the planet. Something that we have proven thanks to a small insect that has survived ice ages and extreme conditions. Microplastics. And this insect has given us the key that it is eating microplasticsthose particles that little by little we give more attention to our environment. But the curious thing, as a study has shown, is that they have managed to penetrate the terrestrial food web of the frozen continent. And the truth is that there is little plastic, since there is little human life. The protagonist. the insect in question analyzed is the Antarctic Belgiuma flightless mosquito (since it lost its wings so that the wind would not drag them) and is considered the largest purely terrestrial animal on the continent. Despite measuring between 2 and 6 millimeters. This is possible thanks to their extraordinary survival capabilities, having the ability to withstand freezing of their body fluids and extreme dehydration. But nature has not prepared it for the consumption of microplastics. The study. The researchers they got analyze its diet thanks to the collection of larvae during an expedition in 2023. When analyzing the samples collected with advanced techniques, it was clearly seen that there were plastic polymer fragments inside the organisms. And although the proportion was low, the laboratory experiments told a different story. And the moment insects are exposed to an environment with microplastics, they ingest them with the same ease with which they eat algae or moss, which is their usual diet. That is, they do not discriminate against them. The impact. In humans we are still trying to find out the effect of microplastics on ourselves, and in mosquitoes it seems that in the short term it does not seem to be lethal. This way, these insects could continue going about their lives as normal, but there could be a subtle effect on the amount of fat reserve. Something that in an environment where every calorie counts to survive the cold, any caloric deficit is a risk. The state of the ecosystem. In this way, the concern is not about the survival of this insect, but rather lies in how the human hand reaches even those areas where we do not have a very strong presence. The arrival of microplastics that coincide with those used in research equipment, tourist clothing and marine waste gives us a wake-up call on how we must reduce our impact on the environment. And this ingestion of microplastics tells us that pollution has become evident in this ecosystem. But there is good news: there is no risk that the presence of these microplastics will begin to ascend the food chain of the different species because there are no predators that eat this insect. The change. However, this discovery definitively breaks the illusion of isolation. From the deepest ocean trenches to larvae on the islands of Antarctica, there is no place left on Earth free from the imprint of our polymers. The Antarctic Belgium has survived millions of years of hostile climate; Now we will have to see how it adapts to the Anthropocene. Images | 66 north FlyD In Xataka | Eight months ago a robot disappeared under the ice of Antarctica. Today we have recovered it and it brings disturbing data

We lost a robot under Antarctica for eight months. He’s back with disturbing facts about the Denman Glacier

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On planet Earth there are still many mysteries that we do not know, especially those that hide in the deep sea where It is very difficult for us humans to reach due to the high pressures that exist. That is why science is committed to send robots to explore this area, although the last one we sent stopped sending signals for months, something that would undoubtedly indicate the worst. But the reality has been very different. The exploration. The mission led for the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership Its objective was to study the ice shelves of Denman and Shackleton of which we really knew little. To do this, they used a float Argo standard that modify their buoyancy to sink, take measurements and rise to the surface again. But in this case there was a big problem: under the ice platform there is no surface, only a ceiling of ice hundreds of meters thick that prevented this robot from rising again, remaining adrift, dragged by the waves. sea ​​currents. We expected the worst. This robot stopped emitting signals about what it was doing in the depths, and was already considered ‘dead’ by the researchers. But now it has resurfaced after eight months of being in this situation. And the good news is that even if it didn’t emit signals, the robot continued working and created 200 profiles, going up and down every five days, collecting data that no human had ever seen. Sailing blindly. The question is obligatory: how do we know where the robot was if it did not have GPS under the ice? To do this, the researchers used an ingenious reverse engineering technique described in the study: every time the robot tried to go up to the surface to transmit, collided with the surface and recorded the pressure at the moment of impact. Something that can be related to the depth at which it was found. When recovering data after its reappearance in open waters, scientists compared those impact points with satellite maps indicating the thickness of the ice in the area. In this way, it was like solving a 3D maze: if the robot crashed 300 meters deep, it had to be at a point where the ice is 300 meters thick. Thus they reconstructed their erratic trajectory of almost 300 kilometers. What we know. Until now we had the idea that East Antarctica was always a ‘stable’ and cold area because, unlike the West, it thaws very slowly. But now we have data that makes us doubt this a lot. In the case of the Shackleton platform we know that it is a cold fortress with a cavity under the ice that is filled with very cold water that protects it from melting from below. If we talk about Denman Glacier We can now relate it to a danger zone, as an intrusion of ‘warm’ water was found flowing towards the base of the glacier. Why it is important. Denman Glacier It’s not just any harmless thing.but it has enough ice to raise global sea level by 1.5 meters. In this way, if the water is warm it will be able to cause this glacier to end up melting and this will undoubtedly be a big problem for the coasts of our planet. Now all that remains is to monitor this area, which can now be categorized as dangerous due to the risks that the planet may finally have if this is something that ends up being confirmed. Images | henrique setim AOML In Xataka | We have been trying to figure out what Antarctica would be like without ice since 1950. We just discovered it

The depths of Antarctica had always been a mystery, so far: 3,000 “mega -structures”

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An international team of scientists, with the researcher at the University of Barcelona David Amblàs at the head, He has revealed A much more complex and detailed map of the Antarctic Sea Fund. Using the most complete database to date, they have identified 3,291 individual cannons organized in 332 systems, some of which sink up to 4,000 meters deep and that act as supermarine superautistapistas that regulate the global climate, and at the same time, represent the Achilles heel of the gigantic glaciers of the icy continent. The map that has changed everything. Until now, our vision of the seabed surrounding Antarctica was blurred. The maps were based In low resolution data that barely suggested the largest structures. But everything has changed thanks to the new ‘International Bathymetric Chart of the Southern Ocean (IBCSO) V.2‘, a cartography that has combined thousands of ship polls with satellite data. Taking advantage of this “Google Maps” of the Antarctic Sea bed, scientists applied semi -automatic hydrological techniques, similar to those used to analyze river basins on the mainland. In this way, they managed to trace with amazing precision the entire network of “rivers” and “submarines” submarine that cross the continental margins of the continent. Two types of very different geographies. The finding with this system reveals two types of underwater geography. On the one hand, you have the ‘Eastern Antarctica‘Where very branched and -shaped cannon systems are found, which determines that its origin is very old. On the other hand, there is the ‘Western Antarctica‘Where shorter cannons predominate with abrupt slopes and V sections, which allows to see a more recent geological origin. For Amblàs, This difference so marked in geomorphology “It supports the hypothesis that the eastern ice layer is older and formed before the western one.” This is something that until now had only been able to intuit. Visual representation of the applied methodology for the extraction of the streams in the seabed. Water highways that decide our future. These cannons are not just a geographical accident. They are leading actors of climate change. On the one hand, they act as channels for the water of the continental platform, which when cooled and gain salinity, becomes very dense. . This water is precipitated by the cannons to the depths of the ocean, in a process that forms the Background Antarctic Water (AABW). This mass of cold and dense water is the engine of global oceanic circulation, a gigantic “conveyor belt” that distributes heat throughout the planet and kidnaps huge amounts of carbon dioxide in the deep ocean. The geometry of these cannons, therefore, is essential for climate regulation. The Achilles heel of the glaciers. On the other hand, these same cannons are an entrance door for the enemy. Allow him to Circumpolar deep water (CDW), a relatively warm mass of water (about 2 ° C above the freezing point) and saline, sneaks from the open ocean to the base of the ice platforms. This warm water flow is the main responsible for the basal melting of the glaciers, eroding them from below and accelerating their slide to the sea. The discovery of such a dense cannon network, especially in Eastern Antarctica (considered so far stable), suggests that The vulnerability of the continent The oceanic warming could be greater than what the models foresee. Regions such as the Amundsen Sea, home of the final judgment glacier, are full of these cannons that serve the warm water in tray. The great challenge: that our climatic models understand it. In addition, this discovery shows an important career: the climatic models that we currently use to project future scenarios are not able to simulate precisely. The topography is so rugged that the predictions on the dynamics of the oceans and the weather lose reliability, especially in areas as vulnerable as the Amundsen Sea. Therefore, the two authors of this study underline the urgency of continuing to invest in the high resolution mapping of these unexplored areas. The second researcher, Riccardo Arosio, concludes that “new cannons will surely be revealed” and each of them is essential to be able to make more precise climatic models that determine the future of the planet. Antarctica is a well of surprises. There are many investigations that focus on the planet’s location, and the conclusions are very interesting. We already know that in the past Where there is now ice was a real forestor that under its surface Something is sending a sign that science fails to clarify. And this has done that Tourism has arrived at this placesomething that is not sitting too well. Images | Cassie Matias In Xataka | Thousands of marine ecosystems depend on only one thing: the pis and the whale droppings

comes from the depths of Antarctica

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On earth have always given enigmas to those who do not find an answer. In some cases yes, such as when we decipher the strange television signal that came from the sky, but In othersas in the story that concerns us, the mystery continues. In one of the most remote and extreme environments of the planet, a great altitude scientific globe flying over Antarctica has captured radio signals that seem to come from the depths of the earth. It all started 20 years ago. A signal from ice. As we said, for almost two decades, a series of scientific balloons has overwhelmed the vast Antarctic desolation to more than 40 kilometers of altitudecarrying with him instruments designed to capture distant echoes from the universe. We talk about Anita experimentpromoted by an international consortium of physicists trying detect neutrinosthose particles without load, practically without mass, that cross the matter without a trace. Billions of them constantly cross our bodies without us noticing them and, nevertheless, their detection is an extraordinary achievement: when one of them interacts with an ice molecule, it can trigger a rain of secondary particles that emit brief pulses of radio waves. Anita was created for that. But since its deployment, ha captured something else. Inexplicable signals. In it year 2006and then again In 2014Anita detected radio pulses that seemed to come not from above (as expected with cosmic rays) but From belowfrom inside the ice. The waves arose at very inclined angles, up to 30 degrees under the surface, and showed no reflex signs. The problem? That, according to the laws of physics known, that It shouldn’t be possible: To emerge from those depths, a particle should have crossed thousands of kilometers of solid rock before releasing a detectable signal, something that neutrinos usually usually achieves. And yet the data were there. The comparison with other neutrinic detection projects did not yield coincidences. What Anita was capturing was real … But inexplicable. Anita The border of the known. Scientists initially thought they could be facing Tau neutrinosa variant that, crossing Antarctic ice, can generate tau leptons and trigger the so -called “air rains”, emissions that Anita is specially designed to detect. But the angles, the intensities and the frequency of the signals They did not match with the predictions of the standard model. Stephanie Wissel, Astrophysics of Penn State and one of the authors of the new studyrecognized that, although these signs could be confused with neutrinic events, everything points They are not. If they were conventional neutrinos, they should have gone through the entire planet without interacting with anything, which, although technically possible, would be statistically miraculous. Beyond the standard. And here comes the most fascinating. The most disconcerting hypothesis is also the More suggestive: That these signs come from particles that do not appear in current theories. Some experts have proposed that they could be related to The dark matter or with interactions not yet described. Other theories They point to possible unknown effects of propagation of radio waves In polar ice, perhaps influenced by atmospheric, topographic or electromagnetic conditions of the Antarctic environment. That said, and so far, none of these ideas has been able to reproduce experimentally or find parallel evidence. The silence of the other detectors and the absence of compatible patterns reinforce the anomalous nature of these pulses. The promise of the successor. With Anita retired since 2016, the scientific community now deposited its hopes In Pueo (Payload for Ultrahight Energy Observations), a new more sensitive and robust aerial experiment than its predecessor. Designed by the same team, Pueo will have a Best angular resolution And he will be able to capture weaker or subtle signals, which could confirm whether the abnormalities detected are recurring events or simple fortuitous errors. Wissel and his team hope that Pueo can not only capture new similar events, but also elucidate its nature And, in the best case, expand the limits of what we understand today by particle physics. A persistent enigma. One thing is clear: the Mystery remains. The signs detected By Anita They do not fit neutrinos, they do not correspond to known phenomena and have not been able to reproduce. In other words: what is there is an explanatory vacuum, a series of data that challenges our more solid theories. As I said Wissel herselfmaybe we are facing a phenomenon of propagation of unknown radio, or maybe not. Anita’s case represents one of those unique moments in science: when observation is ahead of the theory, and the instruments detect something that the mind cannot still understand. Thus, in the vast cold silence of Antarctica, something seems to be talking. And we have no idea what he is telling us. Image | Penn State In Xataka | In 1960 a strange sound was detected under the waters of Antarctica. Not only do we still have no response: it is multiplying In Xataka | Why the appearance of thousands of lakes in Antarctica is another disastrous sign for our future

More and more are those who visit Antarctica. We have just realized the magnitude of the problems they cause

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We often hear about the damage suffered by the Antarctic ice layer, especially as a consequence of climate change. However, the icy continent is not only changing on the surface. The impact of the human being can also be noticed in the depths New images. A team of researchers He has published images of the seabed in the immediate vicinity of the Antarctic coast in which the effects of human activity in the region can be seen. Specifically they show us the impact on the marine soil that the anchors of the ships that arrive in the coasts of the southern continent. The problem is not simply landscape, it also affects the sea life of the seabed. The team showed special concern for the communities of sponges that inhabit this remote region of the ocean. Unprotected environment. The trail of human activity in this region is the result of various changes in the environment of the Antarctic Ocean. On the one hand, climate change has made waters that once remained vetoed to navigation are now accessible not only to oceanographic ships and breakfast but Also to tourist and recreational vessels. According to the team, during the 2022-23 season, at least 195 tourist, scientific and fishing vessels approached the coastal region in which possible to throw the anchor (areas with depths of no more than 82.5 meters). After the trail of ships. The group of researchers used underwater cameras to study 36 points of the seabed located in the vicinity of the Antarctic Peninsula and San Pedro Island (or Georgia del Sur). As explained, The images Captured to different depths showed disturbances both in the seabed and in underwater life, a consequence of the anchors of the ships that arrived in the environment. “The documentation is late, given the importance of these ecosystems and the protection we assign. The impacts of anchoring are infrastudiated and underestimated globally. It is important to recognize and mitigate the impacts throughout all industries and limit planned anchors,” explained in a press release Sally Watson, co -author of the study. Analysis details have been published Through an article In the magazine Frontiers in Conservation Science. Sponges in danger. The anchors are a risk to the life that extends in the seabed. According to the team, the affected areas showed few signs of marine life. What they did find were the traces of colonies of crushed sponges By effect of the arrival of humans. In contrast, in the adjacent areas “marine life flourished”, they emphasize. Especially vulnerable. An added problem is in the fact that life in these cold environments (part of this endemic life of the environment) tends to be slow growth, which makes it especially vulnerable to these types of problems. An example is found in volcano sponges (Anoxycalyx Joubini), A species found by the team in their expedition to which specimens belong that can be considered among the oldest living animals: they can reach 15,000 years of age. In Xataka | Thousands of marine ecosystems depend on only one thing: the pis and the whale droppings Image | Jeremy Stewardson / Matt Mulrennan / Kolossal

Spain was not one of the first to step on Antarctica, but now it has one of the most coveted laboratories on the continent

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The Antarctica It is a huge frozen desert, but also one orUnique portunity for research. Spain is one of the more than 30 countries that have Bases in the territory And one of them, Gabriel de Castilla’s, has just been extended to be able to carry out a broader range of projects. The peculiarity is that its construction has been carried out in record time and will allow a boost to the investigation of the Climate change and the Biodiversity With a particularity: Spanish is one of the three clean laboratories on the continent. Only. We have been decades studying Antarctica From the air. Is what is allowing us to know What is it under that layer of icebut we also have been studying at Antarctica from the ground. He Antarctic Treaty of 1959 It is the one that allowed different countries to establish bases on the continent, exclusively for peaceful and scientific purposes. However, before that there were already bases such as Orcadas base from Argentina, which were operating continuously in the field. The reason is that it is a Single scenario For research. Not only for its diversity or for the dry atmosphere that allows to install advanced astronomical observatories, but because we can reconstruct the climate of hundreds of thousands of years thanks to the air bubbles trapped in the ice and, above all, it is a Climate change thermometer. Spanish Antarctica. We owe several findings to the field research, being one of the most notable the discovery of the ozone layer in 1985. As a result of those agreements, Spain could establish Two bases in Antarctica. The most veteran is the Juan Carlos i. It was inaugurated in early 1988 and is operated by the CSIC. It is not busy all year, but maintains automated records when there is no one and supports projects of areas such as biology, geology, weather and glaciology. The other is the Gabriel de Castillaopened a year later and operated by the Army. Its operation area is diverse, with research in the fields of earth sciences (geomagnetism, volcanic surveillance or geomorphology, among others), biological sciences (ecology, ethology or microbiology), environmental sciences (climate change) and disciplines such as physics, mathematics or biochemistry. Gabriel de Castilla. Like Juan Carlos I, this base is not always busy. Spanish work is limited to the months of the Southern summer, which occurs between December and March, and its location is unique because it is next to one of the two active volcanoes of Antarctica. This makes it a unique enclave to study geological processes and extreme ecosystems. But it seems that the base fell short, so a new scientific module has been built. In the upper image we see what the base was like. In the lower one, those small modules have been eliminated to leave the new space. Reform reforms. After an investment of two million euros, the Gabriel de Castilla has been able to expand its surface to about 307 m². Thus, he has been able to improve his equipment thanks to a microscope room, an electricity and electronic space, a sanitary module and a clean laboratory. And we might think that in such an extreme climate the construction would go slow, but no: in 70 days of the plane to having a structure that already expects research equipment. As points The army, 700 panels, 400 profiles, 26 screws and a total of 80 tons of material have been used to create a new module 41 meters long by 7.2 wide and another 7 high. In case you wonder, beyond the heating, the walls have a 50 millimeter polyurethane sandwich -type layer and another 60 millimeter inner layer of rock wool to improve thermal protection. Clean laboratory. But beyond the speed in its construction, the most important thing about the ‘new’ Spanish base in Antarctica is the aforementioned clean laboratory. It is a space designed to minimize external pollution, so research processes can be carried out in a practically aseptic space in which the samples are not contaminated with exterior agents. The protocols are very strict in both cleaning and ventilation and disinfection, and the really important thing is that, of the more than 30 bases present in Antarctica, that of the Gabriel de Castilla is one of the three Clean laboratories from the region. As they detail in This video From El País, it will be shared with Portugal, and one of the objectives will be to analyze pure samples to better understand the human impact on the planet without external interference. Images | Earth Army, Antarctic campaign In Xataka | Some scientists have discovered that Antarctica is raising 5 cm a year. It is not clear if it is a luck or a problem

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