Do Himalayan-style mountains lie under the Antarctic ice: Implication for the Gondwana Supermountains, the rise of oxygen and the Cambrian explosion?

Analyses of detrital zircons from Antarctica show that its tectonics were dominated by Himalayan-style mountains, the roots of which now underlie the ice sheet. These mountains formed during the amalgamation of Gondwana and when the Antarctic data are added to the global river zircon database and appropriately weighted, it is apparent that the mountains, which formed by the amalgamation of Gondwana, were our planet’s dominant mountain-forming event. Nutrients shed during the erosion of the Gondwanan mountains fertilized the oceans, leading to a proliferation of primary production that formed the base of the animal food web. Burial of the abundant carbon produced by photosynthesis was responsible for a marked increase in atmospheric oxygen, which facilitated first the rise of animals and later the Cambrian explosion. Approximately 46% of the detrital zircons in the weighted global database, during the critical period from the base of the Cambrian to the end of the Cambrian explosion, and 55% of the high-pressure grains, were derived from Antarctica.