"For decades, scientists have been studying intriguing " gravity holes," which are enormous depressions in the Earth's crust where the effects of gravity are significantly lower than average. It's an especially pertinent phenomenon in the Antarctic, a region that has seen significant changes not just due to global warming, but far longer-term climate changes spanning tens of millions of years - long before the emergence of humans and their environmentally disastrous footprint on the planet."
""Imagine doing a CT scan of the whole Earth, but we don't have X-rays like we do in a medical office," said Forte in a statement. "We have earthquakes. Earthquake waves provide the 'light' that illuminates the interior of the planet." Using computer models, the team reconstructed the state of Antarctic's gravity hole 70 million years ago, around the time when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth."
Earth features gravity holes, enormous crustal depressions with below-average gravitational effects. Antarctic gravity is particularly weak beneath the ice when accounting for Earth's rotation, driven by slow deep rock movements. Detailed mapping reconstructed the Antarctic gravity hole back 70 million years using global earthquake recordings and computer models. The gravity anomaly intensified over tens of millions of years, coinciding with major Antarctic climate shifts and widespread glacier formation that influenced sea levels and ocean acidity. Rock motion and ice growth appear correlated, suggesting gravity shifts may have facilitated ice-sheet expansion, though causation between the two remains unproven.
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