{"id":231459,"date":"2026-02-16T13:12:42","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T19:12:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/antarctica-sits-above-earths-strongest-gravity-hole-now-we-know-how-it-got-that-way"},"modified":"2026-02-16T13:12:42","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T19:12:42","slug":"antarctica-sits-above-earths-strongest-gravity-hole-now-we-know-how-it-got-that-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/antarctica-sits-above-earths-strongest-gravity-hole-now-we-know-how-it-got-that-way","title":{"rendered":"Antarctica sits above Earth\u2019s strongest \u2018gravity hole.\u2019 Now we know how it got that way"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/antarctica-sits-above-earths-strongest-gravity-hole-now-we-know-how-it-got-that-way2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Gravity feels reliable\u2014stable and consistent enough to count on. But reality is far stranger than our intuition. In truth, the strength of gravity varies over Earth\u2019s surface. And it is weakest beneath the frozen continent of Antarctica after accounting for Earth\u2019s rotation.<\/p>\n<p>A new study reveals how achingly slow rock movements deep under Earth\u2019s surface over tens of millions of years led to today\u2019s Antarctic gravity hole. The study highlights that the timing of changes in the <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2022-07-antarctic-ice-sheet-advanced-retreated.html?utm_source=embeddings&utm_medium=related&utm_campaign=internal\" rel=\"related\">Antarctic gravity low<\/a> overlaps with major changes in Antarctica\u2019s climate, and future research could reveal how the shifting gravity might have encouraged the growth of the frozen continent\u2019s climate-defining ice sheets.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf we can better understand how Earth\u2019s interior shapes gravity and sea levels, we gain insight into factors that may matter for the growth and stability of large ice sheets,\u201d said Alessandro Forte, Ph.D., a professor of geophysics at the University of Florida and co-author of the new study recreating the Antarctic gravity hole\u2019s past.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gravity feels reliable\u2014stable and consistent enough to count on. But reality is far stranger than our intuition. In truth, the strength of gravity varies over Earth\u2019s surface. And it is weakest beneath the frozen continent of Antarctica after accounting for Earth\u2019s rotation. A new study reveals how achingly slow rock movements deep under Earth\u2019s surface [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[493,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-231459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climatology","category-futurism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231459\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}