(The Local) The icy Antarctic coast was once a lush green subtropical rainforest, teeming with plants, trees and insects, a German scientist told The Local – after finding pollen from trees in ancient rock samples deep under freezing waters.
"We are positive that these forests must have been teeming with animals; many of the pollen grains that we found were from flowering plants that were insect-pollinated," said palaeo-climatologist Jörg Pross.
In a study published in the current edition of science journal Nature, researchers from Pross' Goethe University and the Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre in Frankfurt report how rock samples from drill probes off the coast of Wilkes Land, Antarctica, contained evidence that a period of intense warmness had occurred around 52 million years ago.
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