About 34 million years ago, the first major Antarctic ice sheets appeared, suggesting that major cooling had taken place; however, the global transition into this icehouse climate remains poorly constrained. A new, continuous record of sea surface temperature (SST) from an ocean sediment core in the East Tasman Plateau now suggests that there was almost no latitudinal SST gradient between subequatorial and subpolar regions during the Early Eocene age (55–50 million years ago).
- Peter K. Bijl
- Stefan Schouten
- Henk Brinkhuis
