DCT-FCTUC professor studies stone circles in Antarctica that are 10 thousand years old
Researcher Pedro Pina, from the University of Coimbra (UC), is studying and monitoring the evolution of natural stone circles in Antarctica that were formed 10 thousand years ago, when the glaciers began to retreat.
«In polar and high mountain areas, it is common to have natural patterns of rocky fragments that form, above all, in ice-free regions such as “permafrost”, in which the soil, due to seasonal temperature variations, creates circles of stones on the surface, which can be between 01 and 04 meters in diameter», explained the scientist. According to Pedro Pina, professor and researcher at the Department of Earth Sciences at the Faculty of Science and Technology, the study and monitoring of the evolution of those stone circles is being carried out using satellite images and, more recently, drones.
The researcher explained that “permafrost” is the layer of the Earth’s crust that is permanently frozen, noting that if temperatures reach zero degrees or more that layer begins to “thaw and enable dynamics similar to normal soil, ultimately allow, in Antarctica, deployment.