{"id":58043,"date":"2025-01-01T20:29:15","date_gmt":"2025-01-01T09:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/maintenance.html\/?p=58043"},"modified":"2025-01-01T20:29:15","modified_gmt":"2025-01-01T09:29:15","slug":"first-ever-amber-discovered-in-antarctica-shows-rainforest-existed-near-south-pole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/?p=58043","title":{"rendered":"First-ever amber discovered in Antarctica shows rainforest existed near South Pole"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-58044\" src=\"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Antarctic_Amber.png\" alt=\"Antarctic Amber\" width=\"616\" height=\"257\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Antarctic_Amber.png 616w, https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Antarctic_Amber-300x125.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 616px) 100vw, 616px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Imagine a time machine that could whisk you back to the age of the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/dinosaurs\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener\">dinosaurs<\/a>. Suddenly, you find yourself in a dense, swampy forest, with insects buzzing between\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.frontiersin.org\/journals\/earth-science\/articles\/10.3389\/feart.2023.1048754\/full\">flowers, ferns, and conifers<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Believe it or not, you&#8217;re standing in West Antarctica.<\/p>\n<p>Scientists in Germany and the UK have now discovered amber there for the first time \u2013 the fossilized &#8216;blood&#8217; of ancient coniferous trees that once grew on Earth&#8217;s southernmost continent between 83 and 92 million years ago.<\/p>\n<p>Along with fossils of roots, pollen, and spores, the amber provides some of the best evidence yet that a mid-Cretaceous, swampy rainforest existed near the South Pole, and that this prehistoric environment was &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1017\/S0954102024000208\">dominated by conifers<\/a>&#8220;, similar to forests in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/discovery-of-ancient-rainforest-in-antarctica-is-a-grim-warning-of-earth-s-future\">New Zealand<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/pursuit.unimelb.edu.au\/articles\/fossil-forests-under-antarctic-ice\">Patagonia<\/a>\u00a0today.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/nexusnewsfeed.com\/article\/science-futures\/first-ever-amber-discovered-in-antarctica-shows-rainforest-existed-near-south-pole\/\">https:\/\/nexusnewsfeed.com\/article\/science-futures\/first-ever-amber-discovered-in-antarctica-shows-rainforest-existed-near-south-pole\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Imagine a time machine that could whisk you back to the age of the\u00a0dinosaurs. Suddenly, you find yourself in a dense, swampy forest, with insects buzzing between\u00a0flowers, ferns, and conifers. Believe it or not, you&#8217;re standing in West Antarctica. Scientists in Germany and the UK have now discovered amber there for the first time \u2013 &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/?p=58043\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;First-ever amber discovered in Antarctica shows rainforest existed near South Pole&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-interest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58043"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58045,"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58043\/revisions\/58045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}