- WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) -- A huge volcanic eruption rocked Antarctica
about 25 million years ago, spewing ash 40 miles into the air and having
a global impact, researchers announced.
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- An international team of scientists studying
past climatic change and global warming concluded that a massive eruption
took place after finding debris encased in rock from the seabed off the
ice continent's coast.
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- Tim Higham, a spokesman for the government-funded
Antarctica New Zealand agency, said the rocks are the first evidence of
large volcanic eruptions in the area.
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- "The discovery of these volcanic
layers demonstrates a far more spectacular history of volcanic activity
than was previously suspected in the Ross Sea" south of New Zealand,
Higham said.
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- He said the findings suggested an Antarctic
eruption "as dramatic" as the Mount Krakatoa eruption in 1883
in Indonesia, which killed 36,000 people and was heard more than 3,000
miles away.
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- Samples taken 360 feet below Cape Roberts
show that volcanic debris from the blast was blown into the air, then settled
on the sea floor. The samples indicate up to four huge blasts.
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- The cape, 85 miles from New Zealand's
Scott Base and the U.S. McMurdo Station on McMurdo Sound in Antarctica,
is the site of a six-nation project, which entails drilling seabed deposits
to study past climatic change.
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- While the exact site of the eruptions
was unknown, scientists believe it was within 60 miles of the drilling
site. The Mount Erebus active volcano is only a few miles from Scott Base.
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- "The eruptions ... probably had
a significant impact, not only on Antarctica environment, but also on the
global environment of the time," Higham said Friday.
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- Fifty scientists from New Zealand, Australia,
Britain, Germany, Italy and the United States are analyzing and describing
the seabed as it is recovered by the drilling team. They are hoping to
unlock the mystery of Antarctica's climate and find clues to global warming.
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- They also believe that studying earlier
Antarctic warm spells may help them predict what global warming may do
to the world's ice and sea levels.
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