50, 100, 150 Years Ago; September 2012; Scientific American Magazine; by Daniel C. Schlenoff; 2 Page(s)

September 1962

Antarctic Fauna “As for the vast regions of water that underlie the great ice shelves of the Antarctic continent, such as those of the Ross and Weddell seas, it has long been held that these are quite deficient in life. This supposition has been upset recently by the finding of large fishes—mostly Nototheniids—together with bottom invertebrates frozen in situ and exposed well above sea level on the wind-scoured surface of the Ross Ice Shelf near the U.S. base at McMurdo Sound. These remains, on top of ice more than 100 feet thick, had apparently been trapped by freezing at the bottom of the shelf when ice touched the sea floor. Preliminary carbon-14 dating indicates that it may have required about 1,100 years for these specimens to work their way up through the ice.”