Antarctica Never had Mega Lakes: Researchers

A new research suggests that Antarctica always has been dry and that there were never any mega lakes on the continent.

The study, by researchers at the University of Queensland, challenges a previous theory that states Victoria Valley in Antarctica's Trans-Antarctic Mountains had water between 20,000-8000 years ago.

Researchers used topographic surveys and conducted comsogenic dating of the granite boulders at the study site to find out of the area had water in the past. The team found that the Valley never had any "mega-lakes" and that the proposed shorelines are actually remnants of an ancient collapse of the slope that occurred around 300,000 years ago.

"The McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica are one of the driest places on Earth, thought to be similar to the conditions on Mars, and our research has shown a drier history than previously believed," said Hamish McGowan from UQ's School of Geography, Planning and Environmental Management.

"Our studies show the previously accepted mega-lake, estimated to be 200m deep and covering an area of 100km2, never existed," McGowan added in a news release.

According to McGowan, other researchers interpreted the existing landscape features as evidence for a lake shoreline.

"Our research has shown that these features are actually evidence of an ancient mass movement of land and that accumulating enough water to generate a mega-lake would not have been possible at the time," McGowan said. "There are well-recognised paleoshorelines from other Antarctic lakes, but the shorelines proposed for Glacial Lake Victoria are not consistent."

The study is published in the journal Geomorphology.

In related news, British Russian scientists are trying to reach Lake Ellsworth, which is a subglacial lake beneath West Antarctic ice sheet.