00:00In 2011, Chilean researchers discovered a singular fossil in Antarctica,
00:05evoking a crushed football ball.
00:08For nearly 10 years, this specimen remained without a specific label,
00:12placed on a shelf of the Chilean National Museum of Natural History.
00:16In the museum, it was called La Chose,
00:18a nickname inspired by its appearance worthy of a science fiction film.
00:22When they were finally able to analyze this enigmatic fossil,
00:25scientists discovered that it was actually a giant egg
00:29in Coquilhemol, about 66 million years old.
00:32This egg is more than 28 cm long and 18 cm wide.
00:37For comparison, a standard hen egg is barely 6 cm long,
00:41while an ostrich egg is nearly 15 cm long.
00:44Thus, La Chose was named the largest egg in Coquilhemol,
00:49never discovered, and the second largest known animal egg to date.
00:53The only more imposing egg was that of the elephant bird of Madagascar,
00:57a missing species measuring once and a half the size of Michael Jordan,
01:02or 3 meters.
01:03The bird, of course, not the egg.
01:06This egg, discovered in Antarctica, is also remarkable
01:10because it represents the first fossil egg
01:12born in this region of the globe.
01:14The creature that laid it must have been a gigantic marine reptile,
01:18such as the mosasaur.
01:20This hypothesis is surprising, because most scientists thought
01:23that these animals did not lay eggs.
01:25This discovery could therefore profoundly change our understanding of these creatures.
01:32Finally, this egg is unique because of its thin shell and devoid of pores,
01:36a trait that distinguishes it from typical dinosaur eggs.
01:39Its appearance is more reminiscent of lizard or snake eggs,
01:43although they come from a colossal animal related to these species.
01:47No known flying dinosaur or reptile of this time and this region
01:51seems capable of laying such a huge egg.
01:54Everything leads to believe that it is indeed a mosasaur,
01:57although it is impossible to be totally certain.
02:00Scientists have carried out in-depth research,
02:03studying 259 current species of reptiles,
02:06such as lizards and snakes, as well as their eggs.
02:09Thanks to these analyses, they estimated that the creature,
02:12having laid this egg, should measure at least 7 meters long,
02:15without including the tail,
02:17so it is a monster a little bigger than an adult giraffe.
02:20During the end of the Cretaceous, about 125 to 66 million years ago,
02:25this region of Antarctica could have served as a pupa.
02:28Bones of young mosasaurs and plesiosaurs were discovered there,
02:32alongside those of adult individuals.
02:36In Norway, archaeologists made a remarkable discovery
02:39by finding dozens of arrows hidden in the ice for nearly 6,000 years.
02:43These arrows, revealed by the melting of a vast glacier plate in the high mountains,
02:48covered an area equivalent to 45 football fields.
02:52In 2014 and 2016, when the summers were particularly hot,
02:56scientists explored this area known as Langfön.
03:00They also discovered many bones and reindeer.
03:04Some arrows were intact, while others were fragmented.
03:08Five arrowheads have also been found around the frozen area.
03:12This site has revealed more arrows than any other glacial site in the world.
03:17Among the 68 identified arrows, some date back to the Neolithic era,
03:22while the most recent ones date from the 14th century AD.
03:26Ice acts as a real time machine,
03:29keeping almost perfectly what is there.
03:32Langfön has gained its reputation as one of the first never studied glacial sites.
03:37After a hiker discovered a 3,300-year-old leather shoe there, not far from the shore.
03:44Scientists continue to analyze these sites to understand their use by humans
03:49and the changes undergone by the ice plates from Norway to North America over the centuries.
03:56About 32,000 years ago, a squirrel buried seeds near a river in Siberia.
04:01Does this evoke other memories of the Ice Age?
04:04These seeds belonged to a plant with delicate white flowers, the Silene stenophylla.
04:10Billions of years later, a team of researchers found these seeds
04:14deeply buried in the frozen ground,
04:16at a depth equivalent to that of a 12-story building.
04:20The seeds were buried in the ice,
04:22surrounded by bones of animals such as mammoths, bison and reindeer.
04:27The most mature seeds had been damaged, perhaps by the squirrel itself,
04:31but some younger seeds still retained viable tissues.
04:35Scientists carefully extracted them and placed them in small containers to promote their growth.
04:41And now, the most incredible part.
04:44They managed to grow these plants.
04:46Their flowers had slightly different shapes from those of the same species that grow today.
04:51At the end of a year, this ice age plant even produced new seeds.
04:56These results led researchers to suggest that permafrost
04:59could serve as a reservoir for an ancient genetic heritage,
05:03or that missing species could be found and brought back to life.
05:08Researchers on board an icebreaker in Antarctica
05:11were looking for whales when they made a much more surprising discovery.
05:15A camera placed behind the ship, as heavy as a car,
05:19captured the image of 60 million ice fish nests spread over the bottom of the Weddell Sea.
05:24The nests, spaced about 25 cm in all directions,
05:28spread over an area of 240 square kilometers,
05:31slightly larger than the size of Washington, D.C.
05:34The colony even had a well-defined boundary,
05:37visible as a line traced in the sand.
05:40Scientists explored this region to study a particular oceanic site
05:44where the water was slightly warmer than the surrounding water.
05:48In this heated water, they observed tiny organisms,
05:52called zooplankton, near the surface.
05:56When they hatched, the young ice fish swam towards this area
06:00to feed on zooplankton before going back down to the seabed to grow
06:04and, in turn, reproduce.
06:06With such an abundance of food,
06:08their presence in this warmer water seemed logical.
06:11However, no one expected to discover
06:14such an impressive number of ice fish nests,
06:17much more than had been observed so far.
06:21The Antarctic Heritage Trust of New Zealand
06:24discovered ancient negatives in a cabin in Antarctica.
06:27These clichés turned out to be rare images
06:30of the expedition of the group of the Ross Sea,
06:32a famous but unsuccessful attempt
06:34led by Ernest Shackleton between 1914 and 1917.
06:38His ambition was to be the first to cross the Antarctic by land,
06:42linking the Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea,
06:44passing through the South Pole.
06:46However, the expedition took a disastrous turn
06:49when their ship, the Aurora, was lost at sea.
06:52The team had to hide in the cabin of another explorer,
06:55Captain Robert Falcon Scott,
06:57who had also sought to reach the South Pole in 1912,
07:01without success.
07:02The negatives, made of cellulose nitrate,
07:05were found stuck to each other in a small box.
07:10The Trust brought the negatives back to New Zealand,
07:12where they were carefully separated,
07:14revealing 22 images so far invisible.
07:17Although many photos have been damaged,
07:20some show recognisable places around the McMurdo Detroit,
07:23an emblematic region of Antarctica.
07:26However, the photographer's identity remains a mystery.
07:29In December 2021,
07:31researchers observed an unusual mark
07:33on Larsen's ice platform,
07:35a huge stretch of ice off the east coast of Antarctica.
07:39They assumed it was an underground river
07:42and dug nearly 500 meters to verify.
07:45Although they expected to find water,
07:47they were surprised to discover
07:49that it housed tiny rapid creatures,
07:51called amphipods.
07:53The researchers also found that this underground river
07:56carried layers of currents,
07:58moving in unexpected directions
08:00and still misunderstood.
08:02Another amazing discovery marked their study.
08:05On December 20 of the same year,
08:07a volcano, the Oonga Tonga,
08:09erupted,
08:11and the pressure waves generated by this event
08:14were detected in Antarctica's frozen river.
08:17This observation illustrates the amazing interconnections
08:20that link all the phenomena of our planet,
08:22even in the most remote regions.
Comments