Abstract
Some 60 million years ago Antarctica was welded on to Australia and linked to South America by a mountain chain. Greenland was just beginning to separate from North America and the Eurasian basin of the Arctic ocean was beginning to form. Temperatures were much higher. Temperate forests ringed the Arctic and Antarctic coastlands, while vegetation thrived at the South Pole where today the mean annual temperature is −50°C. Ice-sheets were non-existent and valley glaciers were confined to the highest mountains: sea-ice was unknown and permafrost was absent except possibly in high mountains. The world was devoid of pingos and tundra polygons.
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Further Reading
An excellent introduction to the field is provided by an exciting and enthralling book which is very popular with students
Imbrie J. and Imbrie K. P. (1979) Ice Ages (London: Macmillan).
Three more detailed sources from the research literature follow. The first two offer splendidly bold and general hypotheses, whilst the third gives a clear visual summary of the radio-echo sounding work of the Scott Polar Institute (Cambridge).
Denton G. H. and Hughes T. J. (1983) ‘Milankovitch theory of Ice Ages: hypothesis of ice sheet linkage between regional insolation and global climate’, Quaternary Research, vol. 20, pp. 125–44.
Mercer J. H. (1978) ‘West antarctic ice sheet and CO2 greenhouse effect: a threat of disaster’, Nature, no. 271, pp. 321–5.
Drewry D. J. (1982) ‘Antarctica revealed’, New Scientist, 22 July, pp. 246–51.
Other specific topics in the chapter may be difficult to follow up because the sources are either specialised or very recent. Two papers in the following edited volume make it worth obtaining through an inter-library loan scheme. The first summarises marine evidence concerning the inception of the Antarctic ice-sheet. The second is a fine example of the way marine cores are interpreted, and one which argues that subantarctic fluctuations lead those in the northern hemisphere
Kennett J. P. (1978) ‘Cainozoic evolution of circumantarctic palaeoceanography’, pp. 41–56.
Hays J. D. (1978) ‘A review of the Late Quaternary climate history of Antarctic seas’, pp. 57–71.
Both in: Van Zinderen Bakker, E. M. (ed.) (1978) Antarctic Glacial History and World Palaeoenvironments (Rotterdam: Balkema).
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© 1987 David E. Sugden
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Sugden, D. (1987). The Polar and Glacial World. In: Clark, M.J., Gregory, K.J., Gurnell, A.M. (eds) Horizons in Physical Geography. Horizons in Geography. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-18944-1_14
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