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00:00500 meters beneath antarctica where sunlight has never reached something is alive amphipods
00:09drifting in total darkness cut off for thousands of years ice here can be nearly five kilometers
00:16thick from above it looks empty but it isn't beneath the surface are uphill flowing rivers
00:23lakes larger than cities active volcanoes in million-year-old air all locked inside earth's
00:31largest freshwater reserve and now the world's most powerful nations are racing to control it
00:38china is building new year-round stations russia is running seismic surveys in contested territory
00:46antarctica is protected by an international treaty that bans mining and territorial claims
00:52in 2048 that protection can be reviewed and when it is presence becomes power
01:03so what is under the ice that is worth this much effort what are they actually looking for
01:12this is new nature and we spent weeks pulling together the latest research from glaciologists
01:20geophysicists and ice core scientists antarctica is far more interesting and far more valuable
01:27than it looks from above to see what nations are really chasing we have to go under the ice
01:35but first let's zoom out antarctica is the fifth largest continent on earth larger than the united
01:45states and mexico combined it holds 70 percent of the planet's fresh water locked inside an ice sheet
01:52that is thick enough to bury the alps it's the coldest driest and windiest place on the planet
02:00temperatures drop to minus 90 degrees celsius winds can exceed 200 miles per hour in winter parts of the
02:09continent don't see the sun for months at a time and yet life exists here from the surface to the
02:17ocean
02:18and deep beneath the ice so let's go down
02:28antarctica is a library
02:32an ice library snow falls in antarctica year after year and compacts under its own weight each layer is a
02:41year
02:42like tree rings as the snow compresses air gets trapped between the grains tiny bubbles of atmosphere sealed in time
02:56these rods are ice cores scientists drill down and pull up long cylinders of frozen history trapped inside
03:06are tiny bubbles of ancient air the deeper the core the further back in time this is one of the
03:15oldest continuous
03:16ice cores ever recovered drilled from nearly three kilometers down it contains air that's about one point
03:24two million years old if it warms that record is lost forever this is how we know what earth's
03:33atmosphere was like long before modern humans existed the ice preserves carbon dioxide levels methane
03:41volcanic ash and temperature signals a complete atmospheric archive it records when the sahara was green and when
03:51mammoths walked the earth when carbon dioxide levels were half of what they are today
03:59the ice doesn't forget but this is still just the top layer before we go deeper look at what happens
04:08to
04:08snow once it hits the surface
04:11most of antarctica is covered in bright reflective snow but in some places powerful winds strip that snow
04:21away exposing something unexpected fields of blue ice this ice began as ordinary snowfall compressed until air
04:32bubbles were forced out with no fresh snow on top light penetrates deeper and the ice absorbs reds and yellows
04:41leaving it glowing blue in some regions blue ice reveals ice that's hundreds of thousands of years old
04:51elsewhere on the surface the opposite happens
04:54snow snow keeps falling year after year it piles up compresses and buries whatever lies beneath it
05:06and then there's this
05:10mount erebus the most southern active volcano hot volcanic gases escape from vents on its slopes and where those gases
05:21meet the ice they carve warm caves inside those caves scientists have found mosses algae and dna
05:31sequences that don't match anything we've seen before life finding a way in the least likely place
05:41but the strangest thing near the surface isn't alive
05:46in 1979 air new zealand flight 901 crashed into mount erebus
05:55killing all 257 people on board
06:03the terrain was unstable the ice is constantly moving full recovery was never possible
06:12snow and ice quickly buried much of the wreckage
06:18parts of the aircraft and possibly human remains are still likely entombed beneath the ice
06:26the cold can preserve the past and hold it perfectly still
06:33and as we go deeper into the ice
06:36you'll start to realize
06:38antarctica is much more than just ice and snow
06:41it also has heat
06:43history
06:44and it's hiding things we're not supposed to find
06:51we're about a thousand feet down now
06:54and this is where antarctica stops behaving the way people expect
06:59most people think of antarctica as one giant block of melting ice
07:04in reality it's doing two different things at once
07:09in west antarctica ice is thinning fast
07:13glaciers are accelerating toward the ocean
07:16ice shelves are breaking apart
07:19some of the fastest ice loss on earth is happening here
07:24but east antarctica tells a different story
07:28it's colder thicker and in some regions snowfall has actually added ice
07:34at least for now
07:37satellite measurements show that despite these gains in the east
07:40antarctica as a whole has been losing ice for decades
07:48but the continent isn't responding as one system
07:52that's the paradox
07:55and it's why this layer matters
07:58if we don't understand what's happening here
08:01in this compressed transition zone inside the ice
08:04we can't understand what comes next
08:08so we keep going down
08:11you're more than a kilometer down now
08:15the pressure here is extreme
08:18between the ice and the bedrock below
08:21water is moving
08:24beneath antarctica
08:26thousands of rivers and lakes from a connected drainage system
08:31some of these subglacial lakes hold volumes of water comparable to major u.s reservoirs
08:38when they drain it happens fast
08:42in some events billions of liters of water are released over just a few days
08:47comparable to a large fraction of a lake
08:50like lake mead moving underground unseen beneath the ice
08:56that water can travel hundreds of kilometers across the continent
09:00as it redistributes below the ice above responds
09:05the surface lifts and settles by meters as pressure shifts underneath
09:10like weight moving across a frozen shell
09:15we've barely touched this world directly
09:19if you add up every place humans have physically reached beneath the ice
09:25it covers about the size of a basketball court
09:29so instead of digging we fly
09:33helicopters sweep low over the ice carrying massive electromagnetic sensors
09:39huge loops suspended beneath them
09:42systems like skytem send signals down through ice and rock
09:46revealing what's frozen what's liquid and what's moving below
09:52we're echolocating a hidden continent
09:57and occasionally this hidden system reaches the surface
10:02this deep red stain spills from taylor glacier
10:06it's streaking the ice like an open wound
10:09scientists call it blood falls
10:13when explorers first saw it in 1911 no one could explain it
10:18algae was suspected
10:19but algae needs sunlight
10:22and this water comes from deep inside the ice
10:26look closely and you'll see the water comes out clear
10:30this is ancient briny water more than twice as salty as the ocean
10:36which keeps its liquid even at minus five degrees celsius
10:40it's been sealed beneath roughly 400 meters of ice for millions of years
10:47dissolved iron reacts with oxygen oxidizing on contact and staining the ice red
10:54blood falls gives us a glimpse into what these hidden rivers transport beneath antarctica
11:00iron organic carbon and nutrients
11:06there are thousands of subglacial outflows like this across antarctica
11:14most never reach the surface
11:18when that nutrient-rich meltwater enters the ocean
11:23it fuels phytoplankton
11:26which support krill and everything above them
11:31everything is connected the system begins beneath the ice and ends with the largest animals in the ocean
11:39blue whales the largest animals to ever exist on earth
11:45in the 20th century we almost wiped them out
11:49between 1904 and 1967 more than 360 000 whales were killed in antarctic waters alone
11:59blue whale populations collapsed by 97 percent
12:05they're recovering but there's still a problem
12:09we don't understand them well enough yet
12:12where they breed how they migrate
12:15what conditions they need to survive in a rapidly changing ocean
12:22and researching animals this large in a place this remote takes resources most people never see
12:30that's why i became a planet wild member planet wild is a community that funds one concrete nature
12:38protection mission every month think of it as crowdfunding for nature what i like about it is that it's not
12:44abstract you don't just hear about problems you see the work being done every mission is documented and
12:51published on youtube within a few weeks i joined because it's one of the few ways i've seen where
12:57you can actually follow nature conservation work from start to finish one of the missions i supported
13:03focused on blue whale research planet wild funded drone-based monitoring that lets scientists study
13:10blue whales without disturbing them and made the resulting data openly available for me that fits this
13:16story the antarctic ecosystem only works if we understand it well enough to protect it if you want
13:24to support this kind of work you can join planet wild too you'll start having an impact as a member
13:30right
13:30away and as a thank you i'm covering the first month for the first 100 people who sign up using
13:36the link below
13:38scan the qr code or click the link in the description to become a member now
13:42and if you want to see planet wild in action check out their latest mission video on their youtube channel
13:50antarctica's ice feeds the ocean
13:54the ocean feeds the whales now let's go back under the ice you're more than three and a half kilometers
14:04down now the pressure is crushing the darkness is absolute and beneath the ice lies one of the largest lakes
14:13on earth lake vostok it is 240 kilometers long and 50 kilometers wide and completely sealed beneath the
14:24ice for millions of years it has never seen sunlight it's been isolated from earth's atmosphere longer
14:33than humans have existed a potential habitat for microbial life unlike anything studied before lake vostok
14:42isn't unique there are nearly 700 subglacial lakes scattered across antarctica in the few scientists have
14:51sampled they've already found evidence of life in lake willens microbes survive by extracting chemical energy
14:59from rock in lake mercer researchers found microbial signatures preserved in the sediments
15:07and remember the amphipods from the beginning they were found beneath the cam ice stream hundreds of kilometers
15:16from sunlight swimming in total darkness
15:21that makes antarctica one of the closest natural analogs we have to icy worlds like europa and enceladus
15:31moons with oceans sealed beneath frozen shells
15:37if life can exist under kilometers of ice beneath antarctica it widens the range of conditions we have to
15:45consider elsewhere in the solar system antarctica isn't hiding aliens but it's showing us what alien life might look
15:59like
16:01and the deeper you go the more heat you find
16:07you're nearing the bedrock now and it's not the solid frozen foundation most people imagine
16:14beneath west antarctica are dozens of volcanoes hidden under kilometers of ice
16:21some of them are active they don't erupt upward the weight of the ice suppresses explosive blasts
16:30instead heat builds below melting the ice from underneath and carving chambers of water and steam
16:39the heat destabilizes glaciers and accelerates ice loss scientists have found ash layers trapped in ice
16:47cores evidence of eruptions that happened while the ice was forming
16:53more recent seismic data suggests some of these volcanoes are active today
16:58this geothermal heat wasn't fully accounted for in early ice models
17:04it helps explain why parts of west antarctica are changing faster than expected
17:10the ice isn't only responding to warming from above it's being heated from below
17:19but these volcanoes are only part of the story
17:24they sit on the surface of something much larger
17:31a continent buried beneath kilometers of ice this is the bedrock
17:40the actual continent buried beneath everything you've descended through
17:47using data from millions of measurements scientists can digitally strip away the ice
17:54surface this is bed map two
17:58when the ice disappears the surface you thought you knew vanishes with it
18:05what's left is a vast rugged landscape mountain ranges comparable to the european alps
18:12lie completely buried beneath the ice
18:16the gamborts of mountains stretch across the interior their peaks rising thousands of meters
18:26unseen for millions of years
18:33denman canyon cuts through the bedrock nearby
18:38the deepest land canyon on earth plunging more than three and a half kilometers below sea level
18:46ancient river valleys run between them preserved exactly as they were tens of millions of years ago
18:55bed map also reveals something more fundamental
18:58antarctica isn't one continent underneath
19:02it's two very different geological worlds
19:06east antarctica is ancient thick and stable part of one of the oldest pieces of continental crust on earth
19:13west antarctica formed differently over tens of millions of years tectonic forces stretched the crust apart
19:23it thinned fractured and sank creating deep basins long before ice ever arrived
19:30that thinning brought heat closer to the surface helping explain why west antarctica hosts dozens of volcanoes beneath the ice
19:42when antarctica drifted south and ice began to accumulate those low fractured regions filled first
19:51strip away the ice today and much of west antarctica sits below sea level
19:57the continent breaks apart into islands and highlands
20:03fossilized pollen and root systems preserved in the rock
20:07show us this was once a green forested land
20:12with rivers and temperate climates when antarctica was part of gondwana
20:21and then there's the wilkes land gravity anomaly a circular structure 300 kilometers wide buried beneath east antarctica
20:32its origin is still debated it may be one of the largest impact scars on earth
20:38or something else entirely whatever it is it's massive and it's hidden
20:46for millions of years the weight of the ice has pressed antarctica downward
20:52pushing the crust into the mantle below
20:56when ice is removed the land doesn't just sit there over centuries to millennia it slowly rises back up
21:06changing coastlines altering drainage and reshaping stress deep within the crust
21:14geologists call this isostatic rebound
21:19this bedrock remembers a world without ice the surface you started on does not
21:28and this is what nations are positioning themselves to control
21:34so why does any of this matter why are nations racing to build stations run surveys and establish
21:42a presence across antarctica
21:47because beneath the ice lies value antarctica shares the same deep geology as south america
21:55africa india and australia continents rich in coal oil metals and rare elements
22:03geological surveys suggest vast resources buried beneath the ice potentially worth trillions
22:12for now all of it is protected by the antarctic treaty signed in 1959 which designates antarctica
22:20as a zone for peace and science prohibits military use and suspends territorial claims but in 2048
22:30that ban can be reviewed and that review could open the door to extraction some countries are already
22:38moving russia has carried out extensive seismic surveys and mapped potential oil and gas resources in antarctic
22:47waters china is rapidly expanding its antarctic program building new year-round stations and investing heavily in logistics
22:58mapping and polar research
23:03meanwhile the united states antarctic program is facing aging infrastructure funding uncertainty and growing
23:11pressure to prioritize elsewhere the balance is shifting the subglacial lakes the hidden biosphere
23:22the ancient rivers the ecosystem powered by iron and nutrients flowing into the southern ocean
23:31all of it exists in a fragile balance that took millions of years to create
23:44the united states of the united states of the united states of the united states of the united states
23:452048 is roughly two decades away the race is already underway
23:53five kilometers of ice cover a continent that stores ancient air channels rivers through total darkness
24:01and supports life without sunlight entire mountain ranges lie buried below the surface
24:09the bedrock beneath antarctica the bedrock beneath antarctica still records a time when this land was green
24:18antarctica is not empty and it's not simple it operates as a connected system that runs from bedrock
24:26to ice to ocean heat shapes the land ice controls the water
24:36water water water carries nutrients nutrients nutrients sustain life
24:44changes in one layer propagate through all the others
24:50systems like this take millions of years to form
24:55and far less time to disrupt
25:03for over 60 years the antarctic treaty has been held
25:10in 2048 its protections can be reviewed
25:15countries positioning themselves as technology turns once unreachable places into viable targets
25:26countries that have been left alone
25:27some environments function precisely because they have been left alone
25:34antarctica is one of them
25:42if you want to be a part of protecting systems like this
25:46you can join the planet wild community through the link on screen and in the description
25:53antarctica antarctica is not the only frontier under pressure
25:58why find out in this video
26:00you
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