A recent study discovered that about 1,700 old virus species are hidden in the Himalayas. Approximately 75% of these viruses were previously unknown to scientists, according a report published in the journal Nature Geoscience.
Researchers examined fragments of viral DNA preserved in ice cores from the Guliya Glacier, located on the Tibetan Plateau at an elevation of over four miles above sea level. They now aim to comprehend how viruses adjust to alterations in the climate and how the present viruses may evolve in the years to come.
Study co-author ZhiPing Zhong stated in a statement that “prior to this work, how viruses linked to large-scale changes in Earth’s climate had remained largely uninvestigated.” “Glacial ice is so precious, and we often don’t have the large amounts of material required for virus and microbe research.”
Zhong works as a research associate at The Ohio State University’s Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center.
As the ice melts due to rising temperatures, climate change poses a hazard to the information contained in permafrost. A significant amount of ice has already been lost from some glaciers in the Andes, Alps, and Himalayas due to the alarming rate at which they are melting.
Ohio State University paleoclimatologist and glaciologist Lonnie Thompson stated, “Three of the ice cores in our collection come from glaciers that no longer exist in the real world.”
“Our mountain-top glaciers and the history they contain are disappearing at an accelerating rate as global temperatures continue to rise.”
Therefore, before they are lost to the changing environment, experts are trying to extract as much as they can through digging.
Learning about the last 41,000 years
According to the paper, the viruses discovered come from “nine time horizons, spanning three cold-to-warm cycles over the past 41,000 years.”
There have previously been other instances of viruses discovered frozen in permafrost. Scientists worry that if humans contract one of these old viruses, more glaciers will melt.
The research claims that the discovery illustrates how ancient viruses changed over thousands of years in response to climatic variations. A virus discovered has been linked to ice cores from 11,500 years ago. The Last Glacial Stage’s cold was giving way to the warmer Holocene epoch, which is currently our period of time, at this point in history.
Because at least 25% of these viruses overlap with species that can be found elsewhere, scientists also think that some of these viruses may have originated abroad.
“That means some of them were potentially transported from areas like the Middle East or even the Arctic,” Zhong stated.