The Great Mountain Builder.

POLAR regions; TRANSANTARCTIC Mountains (Antarctica); EAST Antarctica (Antarctica); ANTARCTICA

This article reports that climate may be responsible for up to half of the height of the Transantarctic Mountain range in East Antarctica, according to new research. Cold weather during the Ice Ages also appears to have been a key player in shaping the mountains of North America and Europe. In addition, in a cold, polar climate like Antarctica, mountain peaks do not experience yearly thawing and refreezing, so they do not erode. Using the Transantarctic Mountains in western Antarctica as their model, the team assumed that most of the range's unusually sharp relief came from glacial erosion and used a computer model to reconstruct its original shape.