If you were ever truly curious about what lies beneath the dozens of miles-deep frozen lakes and oceans on Earth, now is your chance to check out some of the most groundbreaking scientific discoveries found beneath the ice. Scroll forth, and take a dive into the unknown.
A Frozen Lighthouse
Oddly enough, there are plenty of familiar places around the globe that get deep-frozen almost annually. For instance, this lighthouse on Lake Michigan gets frozen over annually. Michigan is one of, if not, the coldest states in America, and for 3 months out of the year, people hardly leave their homes.
Frozen Clothing
Leather and sealskin clothing have been regularly discovered frozen into glaciers and ice in northern Canada. This is indicative of the Inuit tribes that used to live on the ice way up north. Additionally, in August of 2011, frozen Viking clothing was found in Norway!
Ancient Bacteria
In sub-zero temperatures, bacteria doesn’t decompose as it does in standard temperatures. Currently, there are billions of strains of bacteria frozen into glaciers and ice caps that have possibly been around for hundreds of thousands, even millions of years. Scientists are just starting to discover just how life began on Earth by studying these ancient lifeforms.
An Entire Mountain Range
Scientists have known about the Gamburtsev Mountains for 50 years now, but humanity has yet to be able to observe it. This mountain range covers most of Antarctica and is likely untouchable by humankind. It is theorized that humans will go extinct before any of that ice can melt enough to expose even the tallest peak of the mountain range, which is 10,000 feet by the way.
Alien Markings???
Every once in a while, scientists discover these strange patterned formations on glaciers and ice floes. Typically, they are melted sections of ice with ornate, fractal-like cracks in them. Could this possibly be a sign of alien life reaching Earth?
Not So Fast
Gotcha! These formations are melting patterns caused by global warming, ice tends to crack in predictable patterns. This is an example of natural sacred geometry, and it’s quite beautiful. This is a new occurrence due to rising temperatures on Earth, although it is common to see these patterns in microscopic fungal growth.
Frozen Volcanoes
For those who don’t know, the Earth was a lot hotter in the past than it is now. This heat came from underground volcanoes while the Earth was cooling. After that, water synthesized itself, then came oxygen and bacteria. These volcanoes created the land we walk on today, even in the arctic. Fortunately, we have some examples of ancient volcanoes perfectly preserved in frigid areas.
Tectonic Plates
Glaciers practically stopped the cracking of the Earth when they developed during the Ice Age. Due to that, there are million-year-old tectonic plates trapped in time from the Ice Age that occurred 2.6 million years ago. The majority of them are frozen thousands of miles down beneath the crust of the Earth, but with infrared-technology, we can view the bottoms of these plates with ease.
Human Civilization
Tons of important items in human history have been discovered completely frozen into the ice caps. Neanderthals started using primitive tools by breaking off pieces of rocks and shaping them with larger, harder rocks. Lots of tools like these have been found in their altered state, perfectly preserved in ice.
Human Remains…
Oddly enough, a ton of tools and altered objects have been found in the frozen “remains” of humans and animals from the dawn of time. By "remains," scientists mean feces. Somehow large amounts of excrement that have been found frozen and preserved contain at least one indication of primitive technology.
A Whole Dinosaur
In September of 2010, scientists yanked a Nodosaur out of the glaciers very close to the North Pole. This dinosaur was buried underneath nearly an entire mile of ice, it took an entire year of excavation to bring this beast to the surface! Scientists have found that this dinosaur dates back to 110 million years ago and that it was a defensive herbivore based on its body armor and the contents of its stomach.
Human Sacrifices
The Inca people lived in the glacial mountains of Peru, and they existed during a time period that introduced regular, half-year-long deep freezes that created the permafrost in the mountains. They would regularly sacrifice humans to the Sun God, in hopes that they would shorten the winter by appeasing him. Unfortunately, that did not work for them, and they lost a lot of their civilization to these appraisals.
Ancient Art
Pieces of wood with carvings on them have been discovered perfectly preserved in ice both in the northern and southern hemispheres. A fair deal of these carvings are infographics (most likely) about how to construct and operate tools. Some of them are religious and cultural imagery as well.
Viruses
Just like how ancient bacterias don’t break down, viruses are just as resilient. In fact, some scientists fear that if the ice caps continue to melt at such a consistent rate, we will release some crazy viruses into the world. Maybe the zombie apocalypse isn’t as far away as we thought.
Bows and Arrows
Among many other things lost in time, bows and arrows from various generations of civilizations have been discovered frozen almost permanently into glaciers. The bow is one of the most ancient forms of weaponry, and the formula hasn’t changed too much since then. Bows and arrows are still used today, in practically the same construction as they used to be, just with different materials.
WWII Battle Frozen in the Alps
During WWII, French and German soldiers took arms against one another in the Swiss Alps. Both sides believed that they had the upper hand in the cold, but it turns out, neither armies were prepared for the devastation that the cold would bring. Only one battle commenced before both sides retreated, body parts and dead soldiers were found recently, frozen into the top of some of the tallest peaks of the Alps.
The Otzi Man
The Otzi Man is the oldest preserved humanoid that has ever been discovered. He was found in the Alps between Italy and Austria, and he’s roughly 5,300 years old. His DNA matched up almost perfectly to some individuals that have been living in the area for hundreds of generations past.
Just Viking Things
In Juvenna, Norway, a casual hiker stumbled upon a melting deposit of ice that contained a myriad of objects that are presumed to have belonged to the Vikings of the area. These objects, including iron weapons and pieces of a crew-boat, dated back 3,400 years. They also found musical instruments, reindeer traps, and old inscriptions in soft rocks, although none of the writing was legible due to erosion from the melting ice.
Modern Objects
Glaciers don’t specifically hold ancient artifacts, but during the change of the seasons, they tend to take on new objects and refreeze over them. For instance, this photograph of Earnest Shackelton was just found frozen into a glacier in the Arctic. His ship crashed while carrying cargo in 1939, the entire crew died but this photo remained in the ice until 2009.
Trash
As the human race grows, so does the amount of trash that we produce. Recently, scientists, native individuals, and conservationists have been pulling hundreds of tons of trash out of the oceans and waterways, and the number keeps growing. If we don’t cut down on the amount of waste that we produce, soon it will take over our waters.
Copper Arrowheads
Primitive copper arrowheads are regularly found perfectly preserved, almost as if they weren’t frozen in ice for thousands of years. These discovered arrowheads have helped historians approximate the intelligence levels of humans over the years, and they have made some shocking conclusions. These arrowheads were dated back over 1,000 years before historians presumed human beings were making these kinds of tools, this has given scientists a new perspective of the progression of intelligence in humans in history.
32,000-Year-Old Seeds
Yeah, you read that right. A single seed was found in the stomach of an ice squirrel that dates back 32,000 years. Scientists were able to thaw and grow the seed into a series of flowers that were similar to the lily plant we have today. This was an enormous breakthrough and is historically one of the coolest scientific feats ever performed.
Atlatl Darts
Pronounced “at-latel,” these were early forms of extremely sharp spears crafted strictly from wood. These weapons came from before the time period that humans were crafting copper and iron into spearheads to increase their longevity. Atlatl darts are the oldest known form of thrown weaponry in history.
Sabretooth Tigers
Both sabretooth tigers and their individual saber-teeth have been found frozen into icebergs and ice floes for dozens of years. As technology advances, so does our ability to discover frozen creatures and analyze them. However, sabretooth tigers are so common that some gift shops near the Arctic line sell saber teeth as souvenirs, just like some beach town gift shops sell shark teeth.
Various Weapons
Tons of objects that are presumed to be weapons have been pulled out of the ice over the years. Although not all of them are identifiable, we assume that they are all different types of spears and projectiles used to hunt animals and defend tribes of neanderthals. It’s remarkable that the evolution of weaponry changed so drastically over the course of several thousand years where humans had no ability to communicate with each other outside of their own groups.
Woolly Mammoths
Scientists have been finding whole woolly mammoths frozen under glaciers for dozens of years. In fact, woolly mammoths are some of the most commonly found frozen creatures, most of them dating back to 40,000 years in the past. It’s crazy to think that something so big would be preserved so well so commonly, but somehow that is the case.
Lakes of "Blood"
No, these lakes aren’t actually made of blood, but they’re pretty convincing, aren’t they? There are large iron deposits in glaciers that are just starting to be exposed, causing the water to turn a bright red/amber hue. However, if you see anything like this outside of the arctic, you might want to contact the authorities.
The Inca Woman
Although she is not as old as the Otzi Man, this 1,000-year-old frozen Incan woman was found almost perfectly preserved. She was dug out of an ice deposit on the side of an active volcano nearly 20,000 feet above sea level. She honestly looks as if she had just passed away yesterday, and scientists have learned a ton about Incan civilization just from researching her body.
Slightly Younger Humans
One of the most recent discoveries that scientists have made was finding the remains of a colony of humans from 300 years ago. Nobody knows what their lineage was since they were found thousands of miles away from where the Incan people were. These discoveries were made in America, so it is assumed that these were some of the first migrant natives headed south.
Even More Human Sacrifices
In the mountains of Chile, if you walk through the right (or wrong, depends on how squeamish you are) parts of the mountain range, you can potentially find the bones and clothing of child sacrifices from hundreds of years ago. Not much is known about the sacrifices that were made, but ancient tribal Chilean societies suggest that similar sacrifices to the Sun God were made. However, this was not during a period of extreme cold, so, what gives?
An Entire Forest
When glaciers move, they typically pick up everything that’s in their wake, which is typically just rocks and debris. This process is called the moraine phenomenon. Since glaciers move so incredibly slowly, some organisms have the opportunity to stay in their preserved form while they’re trapped under ice. Due to this, you can actually peer through some glaciers and see the frozen ecosystems, only slightly squashed, underneath the massive ice blocks.
Woolly Rhino
So you’ve heard of the woolly mammoth, but have you heard of the woolly rhino? It's just like the regular rhino, these bad boys had a huge, sharp horn and weigh more than two Honda Civics stacked on top of one another. It would take entire tribes of cavemen to take one of these behemoths down, and it’s assumed that they lost the fight around 30% of the time, based on the weaponry and mannerisms of that time period.
A Long Lost Plane Crash
During WWII, an American Army plane was flying through Alaska when it got caught in a sudden blizzard and went down. The plane got buried underneath 50 feet of snow that eventually turned to ice. All 52 passengers died and were frozen into the plane. This plane was impossible to locate until 50 years later when a hiker accidentally stumbled upon the crash site, as the ice had melted enough to expose the nose of the vessel.
Mammoth Brains
One of the strangest, yet most scientifically significant, discoveries was a completely preserved mammoth brain found on the coast of the Laptev Sea. The brain was in the same place as other remains from the same mammoth, including tusks legs, yet no torso was found. This discovery led scientists to deduce that the average lifespan of a woolly mammoth around 60 years, as opposed to the formerly presumed 6-10 years.
Various Sea Creatures
Commonly, squids and other cephalopods end up getting caught in deep water currents and swept into areas that are far too cold to sustain life. Ancient and modern squids and octopus alike are found regularly preserved under the ice. One of the first giant squids ever found was frozen under 60 feet of ice in Antarctica, presumably swept south by an errant current.
A Mystery Beast
Recently, scientists have found the remnants of what seems like a new creature that hasn’t been fully researched yet. Although, the scientific consensus suggests that this animal is just the remains of an ancient moose and another, slightly more modern moose that had moved closer to one another over time as the ice melted and reformed. That being said, there is no definite proof that this hypothesis is true.
Understanding the Process of Discovery
In order to fully determine why and how these discoveries are made, scientists take geographical age mapping diagnostics and cross-reference them with former discoveries made in the area. By discovering one artifact or creature frozen in the ice of a unique area, this opens up an entirely new world of discoveries in the surrounding area. We have learned more about human society by researching their remains found frozen in ice than we have by studying written history.
Old Trapping Devices
Scientists have discovered countless trapping devices that cavemen and neanderthals used to capture beavers and other small animals. One of the most commonly found devices are these things called “gopher sticks.” Essentially, they’re long wooden sticks that had a noose-like snare at the end for capturing gophers and other small mammals as they tried to pass through. These traps were the first of their kind created by humans, indicating the beginning of humanity using non-confrontational tools to capture animals.
The Birch Basket
In 2003, Italian archeologists discovered a preserved basket weaved out of birch bark and young birch branches in the Alps. This basket is said to have dated back 650 years, right when agriculture was being developed in the surrounding area. It is assumed that this basket was used to collect edible vegetation and berries on a larger scale than just holding them.
Wooden Shelters
Not too long ago, scientists discovered some unidentified wooden structure under the ice. The origin of the wood itself is unknown, and it’s carved to almost look like a sail. It’s presumed that this object is some sort of portable wind-blocker, likely for babies and small children. Along with the sail-shaped object were logs cut in the dimensions that would theoretically have worked well as a lean-to.
Boring Ice Patches
No, these ice patches are far from “boring,” in fact, they’re exciting! Some ice deposits can develop a similar density to that of the rock surrounding it. This causes the ice to “bore” down into the land it froze on top of, creating massive holes in the Earth’s crust. These holes generally develop into geysers or waterholes if there is a spring located nearby if not, they’re just regular old holes.
Spears of Iron
It was formerly assumed that Iron was not discovered or utilized until the middle ages, but iron weapons and tools found frozen under the ice in the north have been dated back 500 years before then. Inuit and other ancient societies have shown evidence that they too forged iron, and it was very well done and effective for the time period and the tools that were available. Iron spearheads were considered to be a new invention, and they were formerly credited to the Vikings and European armies.
How Preservation Works
In order for these specimens to be researchable, the ice has to be frozen solid at exactly -1 degrees celsius or lower. Arctic ice is so clean and pure that it can actually withstand temperatures below freezing without cracking for sustained periods of time. Sustained periods of time being tens of thousands of years. Think about putting an egg in your freezer for a month. When you take it out and let it thaw, it’s still a perfectly good egg. In conditions like these, the egg is a woolly mammoth, and the freezer is the entire northern tundra.
Actual Entire Forests
In northern Canada, there is a national forest that’s connected to a glacier. Some of the trees have grown straight through the ice, and in some cases, the glacier helps some trees spread their seeds. Glacial forests are a genuinely unique thing that everyone should see at least once in their lives.
The Bloody River
Throwing it back to earlier when you read about the rivers of blood, there is a glacier in Antarctica called the Blood Falls glacier. This particular ice block trapped a river that was connected to an iron deposit and it caused the iron-rich water to freeze in a way that looks like it’s pond full of blood, miles, and miles long. Talk about a scary sight.
Ice Age Puppies
Although the Ice Age started 2.6 million years ago, the Earth is still recovering from the results of it. Wolves were enormous back then, like the size of small cars. Over time, dozens of arctic puppies have been dug out of the ice and observed by scientists. These creatures are actually terrifying—some of them have teeth as sharp as knives and as long as railroad spikes.
Diving Birds
Sometimes, diving birds can go down too deep and drown, or they can hit pockets of ice and get their sharp beaks stuck in them. This unlucky bird had the former happen to it. Although this bird is not ancient, it is perfectly preserved, and it’s quite beautiful to observe.
Frozen Fish Eating a Frozen Fish
This is just as comical as it is fascinating. This fish never got to eat its last meal, and somehow it froze quickly enough to suspend its prey in its mouth. This is really a strange phenomenon, and these particular fish just might be the only two frozen fish in this position in existence.
Living Frozen Organisms
Warm-blooded organisms and fish will die quickly when frozen in ice due to asphyxiation and arrhythmia, but some amphibians can actually survive the deep freeze. Alligators, for example, can survive a fairly long period of hibernation freezing, in which they do not need to consume food or breathe oxygen. Although they cannot do this for more than a few days, it’s still crazy to think of an alligator coming back to life after being frozen into an ice block for a week.
The Famous Frozen Fox
This fox did not survive, unlike some of the alligators that were tested. If any of you don’t remember the viral sensation that was the perfectly preserved, frozen swimming fox, this is your reminder. This particular creature was a remarkable example of how quickly an organism can freeze and be perfectly preserved.
Millions of Grasshoppers
As the name suggests, the Grasshopper Glacier of Cookie City, Montana is filled with, you guessed it, hundreds of millions of grasshoppers. Over the course of the past 20 years, grasshoppers have gotten stuck in this glacier. It is fabled that the origin of this infestation came from a swarm of grasshoppers getting caught in a snowstorm and subsequently freezing into the enormous mass of ice.
A 250 Million-Year-Old Lake
This frozen lake in subglacial Russia shocked scientists and the public alike when 2 miles of downward drilling showed humanity something it had never seen before. Almost like the start of a horror movie, this lake contains bacteria that are completely unlike anything else on Earth. Some scientists theorize that this bacteria came from an asteroid and has been preserved under this sheet of ice for millions of years.
An Entire Battlefield
Much like the other frozen battle from WWII, an entire WWI battle was found deep underneath the ice in Hapsburg. Somehow this story got lost in history, but two whole outposts were frozen over, almost as if time stopped in that one spot. Newspapers were still intact from the last day the outposts were frozen over. It’s truly unbelievable that this exists.
A Cretaceous-Era Graveyard
A Chilean glacier houses a collection of some of the oldest creatures to even have a molecule of carbon still intact from over 3 million years ago. Scientists have found 46 species of lizard-fish that have no name or direct relatives via DNA. The largest creature that was recorded in the glacier was 16 feet long.
Anthrax Packed Reindeer
Sometimes, bodies that get preserved due to cold weather can have some strange natural chemical reactions due to the bacteria that are decomposing the corpse. Anthrax is a common and naturally occurring neurotoxin that can grow on dead bodies of humans and animals alike. However, this particular reindeer was full of so much anthrax that it hospitalized 40 archeologists and killed 3 after only exposing its hoof to the excavation site.
A Big Fish Eating a Slightly Smaller Fish
You thought there was only going to be one fish eating another fish? Well, think again! This doesn’t make much sense, but somehow this phenomenon has thus far occurred twice. Gaze in awe and fear as this giant carp eats a slightly smaller trout, pretty cool, isn't it?
The Oldest Shirt on Earth
Nordic Scientists found a tunic that dates back to between 230 AD and 390 AD, making this the oldest clothing item to be discovered on the planet to this day. This tunic was covered in horse dung that dated back to that time period as well. It is assumed that this belonged to a horse farmer before the Nordic province was flooded.
Precious Jewels
No kidding, an anonymous French mountain climber found an ancient box that was full of precious jewels. The climber was able to legally claim these jewels that theoretically came from a crashed flight from 1966, where 117 passengers died. Oh yeah, their bodies were found nearby too.
A Frost Resistant Virus
In 2016, scientists discovered a virus that was frozen in the ice at the North Pole that’s resistant to absolutely everything, seriously. Nicknamed the “Compact Killer,” this specimen can only infect amoebas, so we humans are safe from its treachery, but it completely ravaged an amoeba colony in just under 3 hours. Fortunately, this virus is being contained and none others like it have been found.
Frozen Tidal Waves
Due to global warming, there are enormous tidal waves in the South Pole that completely freeze over as soon as the weather gets cold. For about 1 hour a day for 2 weeks out of the year, the South Pole can raise over freezing temperatures. This transition has shocked the ecosystem and has destroyed the solid ground over hundreds of miles of the South Pole.