Antarctica's last forests die
Tundra survives in the Transantarctic Mountains until the middle Miocene, then never returns.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 1 million years
- Known to
- ± 500 thousand years
- Era
- Miocene, Cenozoic
Sediment cores from the Dry Valleys preserve pollen, leaves and wood of a low tundra of mosses and dwarf beeches that persisted in Antarctica through the Miocene optimum. Around 14 million years ago summer temperatures drop roughly 8 degrees and the vegetation disappears for good. The Dry Valleys have been essentially unchanged ever since — some of the oldest continuously exposed landscapes on Earth, with buried ice tens of millions of years old and mummified seals that have not decayed.