Empire Beneath The Ice Pdf -

For most of human history, the polar regions were a blank space on the map, a terra incognita labeled “Here be Dragons.” But today, a new kind of exploration is underway. We aren’t looking for a Northwest Passage or a South Pole. We are looking down —beneath two miles of frozen water—for an empire.

But the empire offers a warning, too. The frozen soil—permafrost—holds the single largest carbon reservoir on land. Twice as much as the atmosphere. As it thaws, it releases methane and CO2. And also, perhaps, something else. empire beneath the ice pdf

But the most astonishing discovery came in 2018, when a team from the British Antarctic Survey drilled through the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf and, 900 meters down, hit a subglacial lake called Lake Mercer. What they pulled up was not just water. It was a living, breathing ecosystem isolated from the sun for 1.2 million years. For most of human history, the polar regions