The ice rag that breed Antarctica is ancient , hiding a whole landscape painting of mountains and vale that once stream with life . Using radar and satellite footage , scientist are learn this hidden world — and they just ground a two - mile - deep canyon down there .
A new paperin the January emergence of the Geological Society of America Bulletin describes how scientist from Newcastle University and Bristol University ’s Bristol Glaciology Centre measured the chasm . Because the ice sheet is so vast , it was “ incredibly serendipitous ” that they even found it at all , says atomic number 82 author Neil Ross . Using radio detection and ranging , the research squad penetrated the deep ice to get word a hidden valley recognize as the Ellsworth Trough , near Ellsworth Lake , where a British team recentlydrilled down to look for evidence of life sentence .
https://gizmodo.com/talk-to-the-antarctic-explorer-whos-drilling-through-mi-5935051
Scientists have love about such rifts for days , but needed to garner more data about the precise sizing and shape of them . In this grammatical case , Ross ’ squad only had radar data for each end of the valley — and no clue what lay in between .
It turn out that this vale — now canon — was so self-aggrandising , it could be seen by NASA satellites . That ’s right : Below mile of ancient ice , the trench was still seeable from outer space . So NASA give them the data point they needed to discover that the trough was in reality 1.8 statute mile deep , far inscrutable than the canyondiscovered under Greenlandic icing last year , and also much deeper than the Grand Canyon itself . Ross waxes poetic in a statement :
https://gizmodo.com/a-mega-canyon-bigger-than-the-grand-canyon-is-hiding-un-1223554256
To me , this just endure to demonstrate how footling we still know about the surface of our own satellite . The find and geographic expedition of hidden , antecedently - unknown landscape is still potential and improbably exciting , even now .
So what really created this mega - canon ? Well , Antarctica was once part of a single jumbo continent that date back C of 1000000 of years . But 80 million old age ago , Antarctica ( along with India and Africa ) break apart , spinning southwards at a pace of 16 atomic number 96 per year(that ’s light speed , in geological price ) . The rift create long valleys and chasm across the warm landscape painting and then the clime began to cool — glacier appeared , carving out even deep chasms .
paradigm : Newcastle University
These glaciers grew deeper and wider , eventually creating the Antarctica we know today and obscuring the incredible wad tramp beneath it . It ’s amazing to imagine that in a few hundred million years , the same process could take position in America , covering our own Grand Canyon under miles of ice , bury until a few unfearing exotic geologists rediscover it . [ Bristol University;PhysOrg ]
Lead image of the Ellsworth Mountains : Shutterstock / Sasha Fenix .
AntarcticaGeologyGrand Canyon
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