Antarctica's lost mountains may have helped early life flourish

Beneath the vast frozen wastes of Antarctica lie the remains of ancient mountains that have long since eroded. Even though they're no longer standing, they can still reveal a few lost secrets. New research published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters suggests that these vanished peaks may have played a fundamental role in the evolution of complex life on this planet.

Before this research, the true size, scale and origin of these hidden Antarctic ranges were largely unknown. To find answers, Bei Chen of the GFZ German Research Center for Geosciences and Ian H. Campbell of the Australian National University studied microscopic mineral grains eroded from these ancient peaks and washed into ocean sediments around the continent.

But what could such tiny pieces reveal about Antarctica's lost giants?

Tiny clues to giant mountains

The researchers started by dating 1,712 zircon grains extracted from marine sediments. The naturally occurring mineral is useful because the uranium inside decays at a steady rate, revealing when the zircon crystallized. Studies of its internal chemistry can also give scientists clues about the conditions under which it formed.

They found that most of the zircon grains dated to between 650 and 450 million years ago, when the supercontinent Gondwana was forming. This ancient giant landmass combined modern Antarctica, South America, Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, India, Australia and Madagascar into a single giant continent.

When Chen and Campbell compared the Antarctic zircons with a global database of river sediments, the results indicated that many of the minerals came from deep within the roots of Himalayan-style peaks. "The Gondwanan Supermountains are the largest ultra-high mountain network in Earth's history," the study authors wrote.

How mountains may have fueled life

They then turned their attention to what happened when those massive peaks began to wear down. When water and ice eroded the land, they didn't only wash colossal amounts of mud and sand into the ocean. They may also have delivered essential nutrients, which may have stimulated the growth of photosynthetic organisms that sit at the bottom of the marine food web. As these microbes flourished, they would have produced large amounts of oxygen.

But on its own, this oxygen is not enough. It has to get into the atmosphere. For that to have happened, the researchers suggest some of the organic carbon produced by photosynthesis had to be buried before it could react with oxygen again. Sediment eroded from the mountains helped bury this carbon, stopping it from reacting with oxygen and allowing the oxygen to accumulate in the atmosphere.

The two geologists believe the link between the mountains and the explosion of early life is clear. "It is unlikely to be a coincidence that Earth's most dramatic period of evolution correlates with the planet's most important period of mountain building."

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