Three-million-year-old landscape beneath Greenland Ice Sheet

Scientists have discovered an ancient tundra landscape under the Greenland Ice Sheet, preserved for 2.7 million years. This discovery provides strong evidence that the Greenland Ice Sheet has persisted much longer than previously known, enduring through many past periods of global warming and remaining stable. The environment allowed a tundra landscape to be preserved under ice through millions of years of global warming and cooling. Many geologists are now exploring the history of the Greenland Ice Sheet, including how it moves and has shaped the landscape beneath it, with the aim of better understanding its behavior in the future. Read more in Science.

PR Bierman et al. Science, 2014. DOI: 10.1126/science.1249047