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It is the longest mountain chain, the most active volcanic area and until recently, the least accessible region on the earth. New maps reveal striking details of how segments of the Ridge form and evolve.
After cruising southeast 2,500 kilometers from the Scripps marine facility in San Diego, we intersected the crest of the East Pacific Rise, located at a depth of about 2.5 kilometers. The Rise marks the boundary between the Pacific and Cocos tectonic plates, each a slab of the earth's crust and upper mantle. The plates separate at a rate of about 120 millimeters per year (twice the rate at which a fingernail grows). As the plates move apart, cracks form along the crest of the rise, allowing molten rock to seep up from the mantle. Some of the molten rock overflows onto the ocean floor in tremendous eruptions. The magma then solidifies to form many square kilometers of new oceanic crust each year. Only a few kilometers above this activity, we felt like Lilliputians crawling along the spine of a slumbering giant that might awaken at any time.
Preserved Peaks | Discovery News Video .June 3, 2009 — Millions of years ago, rivers ran in Antarctica through craggy mountain valleys that were strangely similar to the modern European Alps, Chinese and British scientists reported on Wednesday.
In a study published by the British journal Nature, the scientists described a vast terrain that had been hidden beneath ice up to two miles thick for eons, until new imaging technology recently uncovered them.
“The landscape has probably been preserved beneath the ice sheet for around 14 million years,” the paper said.
The imaging revealed “classic Alpine topography” similar to Europe’s Alps, showing that rivers had once existed on Antarctica and had cut their way through the mountains. Later, these valleys were gouged and deepened by glaciers.
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/06/03/mountains-antarctica.html
Monash University > News and Events > Monash Memo
Australia’s largest Antarctic fossil collection at Monash
12 October 2005
Australia’s largest collection of Antarctic fossils has taken up residence at Monash University.
The collection of more than 1000 fossils features invertebrates (including shells with their original mother-of-pearl still intact), leaves and partial tree trunks, remains of giant penguins, vertebrae and teeth of large marine reptiles such as Plesiosaurs, and a 65-centimetre-long skull cast of a meat-eating Therapod dinosaur.
http://www.monash.edu.au/news/monashmemo/stories/20051012/fossils.html