(CNN) Glaciers in the Canadian Arctic have melted enough to reveal land that was hidden for the last 40,000 years or more, researchers say.

And one big takeaway is this: The Arctic might be having its warmest century in at least 115,000 years, according to a study published this month in the journal Nature Communications

"It's not just a fluke," University of Colorado Boulder doctoral researcher Simon Pendleton, lead author of the study, told CNN. "These ancient landscapes are being revealed over a broad geographic region on Baffin Island."

For this study, scientists plucked 48 mosses and lichens -- still rooted in the spots where they were killed by expanding ice millennia ago -- from the edges of 30 retreating ice caps on Canada's Baffin Island during summers from 2010 to 2015.

Using radiocarbon dating, the researchers found that most of the plants had been under the ice for at least 40,000 years, Pendleton said.

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