Frozen Landscape Discovered Beneath Greenland Ice Sheet
- 10 years ago
A frozen landscape as wide as Manhattan has been discovered beneath the Greenland ice sheet.
A frozen landscape with some features reportedly as wide as Manhattan has been discovered beneath the Greenland ice sheet.
Using radar capable of penetrating deep into the ice layers, NASA survey flights were able to get images of what exists more than a mile below the surface.
In addition to covering an enormous expanse, the pictures showed that subglacial topography features ice formations that stretch up as high as skyscrapers.
Prior to this observation opportunity, it was believed that the masses beneath the sheet’s surface were rock.
That they’re made of ice has offered scientists great insights into how climate change may be affecting not only the frozen cover in northern Greenland, but the one in Antarctica as well.
It’s said that the concealed landscape in Greenland developed as a result of numerous melting and refreezing incidents over hundreds of thousands of years.
Also thought is that their presence could hasten the glaciers’ breaking off and floating into the sea.
Supporting that theory is the discovery of several of the frozen structural anomalies around the Petermann glacier, which in 2010 split off an ice island measuring nearly 100 square miles.
The scientists do note that before anything can be considered definitive, more study is needed.
A frozen landscape with some features reportedly as wide as Manhattan has been discovered beneath the Greenland ice sheet.
Using radar capable of penetrating deep into the ice layers, NASA survey flights were able to get images of what exists more than a mile below the surface.
In addition to covering an enormous expanse, the pictures showed that subglacial topography features ice formations that stretch up as high as skyscrapers.
Prior to this observation opportunity, it was believed that the masses beneath the sheet’s surface were rock.
That they’re made of ice has offered scientists great insights into how climate change may be affecting not only the frozen cover in northern Greenland, but the one in Antarctica as well.
It’s said that the concealed landscape in Greenland developed as a result of numerous melting and refreezing incidents over hundreds of thousands of years.
Also thought is that their presence could hasten the glaciers’ breaking off and floating into the sea.
Supporting that theory is the discovery of several of the frozen structural anomalies around the Petermann glacier, which in 2010 split off an ice island measuring nearly 100 square miles.
The scientists do note that before anything can be considered definitive, more study is needed.