One of the most extreme and unexplored environments on Earth, Antarctica remains among the most fascinating and important regions for scientific discovery in the world.
Covered in vast networks of complex life, it continues to provide key insights both into the genesis and future of the planet and as a marker of man's impact.
The mystery surrounding it clearly appeared to tickle audiences' imagination online this week too, as a video showing a huge, snow-covered cave was said to be part of a tunnel that extended to Antarctica all the way from Argentina.
The Claim
A tweet by account @ronin19217435, posted on July 31, 2023, viewed over 590,000 times shows a video of what appears to be a large, snowy cave or tunnel.
The accompanying tweet states: "In Argentina Tierra del Fuego, there is a tunnel that leads to Antarctica
"Tierra del Fuego is 1,000 km from the Antarctic Peninsula. Ushuaia is the Gateway to the White Continent"
The Facts
The video includes multiple clips of a large cave said to be in Argentina.
Reverse image searches revealed it is known as the "Cueva de Jimbo," or Jimbo Cave, in the Andorra Valley, within the Tierra del Fuego National Park, in southern Argentina.
The park is part of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago at the southernmost point of the country and is littered with ice glaciers. Ushuaia, which is mentioned in the tweet, is the region's capital.
In 2022, multiple media outlets reported the death of a Brazilian man who was said to have been struck by ice that fell from the walls of the "Cueva de Jimbo."
Speaking to Reuters, police official Cristian Armani said that entry to the cave was forbidden as ice and rock can fall from its roof.
Several experts in Antarctic research confirmed to Newsweek that there was no truth to the claim that the cave connected to Antarctica.
Dominic Hodgson of the British Antarctic Survey said there was no such tunnel, adding that even if one existed "it would have to cross Drake Passage which is up to 4,800m deep [nearly 16,000 feet] and 1,000km [621miles] wide."
Drake Passage is where the Pacific and Atlantic oceans converge. It is thought to have sucked down more than 1,000 ships. It makes up a 600-mile stretch between Antarctica and Argentina and is considered one of the most dangerous bodies of water in the world.
Adrian Jenkins, a professor of ocean science at the U.K.'s Northumbria University, said that while the video showed an ice tunnel beneath a natural tunnel in the base of a glacier, it was "most definitely not the entrance to a tunnel that leads to Antarctica."
"Such a construction would be impossible," Jenkins said.
"Not only is Drake Passage (the body of water that separates Antarctica from South America) 800 km wide, it is also 3-4 km deep across most of its width.
"I have no idea where the misconception has come from."
Professor Ian Dalziel of the Department of Geological Sciences at the Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin, told Newsweek the claim was "utter rubbish," adding: "Such a tunnel would have to bore through 250 km [about 150 miles] of Andean continental crust (possible but improbable—see longest Alpine tunnel, St Gotthard, at just over 57 km).
"It would then have to bore through ~750 km of Oceanic crust (i.e. basaltic lava) crossing two active plate boundaries (South America is moving approximately 2.2 cm/year west relative to Antarctica) even to reach the outer islands of Antarctica (South Shetland Islands).
"To reach the mainland of Antarctica it would have to cross another volcanically active plate boundary (Bransfield rift, an active spreading center with a spreading rate of ~9mm/year).
"Why would someone suggest such an improbable/impossible structure? Total ignorance of geology, perhaps with a tinge of Argentine national hubris!"
Professor Martin Siegert, co-director of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London, told Newsweek, that while caves can form in ice, there was nothing much else to back up the claim shared on Twitter.
"Caves can form in ice, due to cavities developed through sublimation processes and (in the case of Greenland and valley glaciers) by meltwater erosion. There are some fascinating examples and some very old reports, such as the Scott expedition.
"But that's about as much of the story that's true."
In short, not only is the description of the cave incorrect but, by the testimony of multiple Antarctica research experts, the notion of a tunnel is preposterous too.
The Ruling
False.
The cave in the video is in Argentina, in the Tierra del Fuego National Park, part of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago in the southernmost part of the country. The park is littered with glaciers, of which this cave, known as "Cueva del Jimbo," is part.
It is not, however, part of a tunnel that connects Argentina to Antarctica. Such a tunnel would have had to cross one of the most dangerous seas through hundreds of miles of deep continental and oceanic crust and volcanic plate boundaries, a notion that was dismissed by several experts in Antarctica research Newsweek spoke to.
FACT CHECK BY Newsweek's Fact Check team
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
