Scientists uncover first direct evidence of time when palm trees grew on Antarctica

Research published today in the journal Nature gives a detailed picture of how scientists are looking to the much warmer Antarctic climate of the distant past to learn more about how the planet could look in the future if climate change continues unchecked. The University of Glasgow's James Bendle is one of the authors of the paper, which is part of a major international research project to examine the Earth's climate during the 'Greenhouse world' of the early Eocene epoch, between 48 and 55 million years ago. Bendle joined 36 other scientists and more than 100 crew members for the 2010 Integrated Ocean Drilling Research Program, on a ship bound for Wilkes Land on the eastern coast of Antarctica. There the scientists dropped a string of drill-pipe through four kilometres of water, to bore one kilometre deep into the ocean floor to collect samples of sediment. Analysis of the sediment samples has created for the first time a detailed picture of the Antarctic climate during the peak of the Eocene Greenhouse world. This level of detail was previously impossible because any Eocene sediments remaining on land were destroyed by the glaciation of Antarctica 34 million years ago or covered with thousands of metres of ice. The sediments, collected continuously and undisturbed over millions of years, contain tiny fossils and chemicals that yield information on the climate at the time the sediments were deposited.