Overview
- Researchers attribute the Antarctic Geoid Low—the planet’s strongest gravity anomaly—to long-term movements of lower-density rock deep in Earth’s mantle.
- Backward physics-based modeling rewound mantle flow roughly 70 million years and found the anomaly strengthened between about 50 and 30 million years ago.
- That interval overlaps major Antarctic climate shifts, including the onset of widespread glaciation, though the study does not establish a causal link.
- By combining global earthquake records with geodynamic simulations, the team produced a gravity map that closely matches satellite measurements.
- Because gravity is weaker beneath Antarctica, the regional sea surface sits slightly lower than it otherwise would, and the authors plan coupled models to test implications for ice-sheet growth and sea level.