Scientists have discovered a landscape of rocky hills and smooth plains beneath the remote Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica.
Scientists have discovered a landscape of rocky hills and smooth plains beneath the remote Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica. A team of researchers used seismic imaging to map the area where the ice sits on the bed, giving new insights into the future of this enormous glacier and how it may respond to environmental change. Results are presented at the European Geosciences Union (EGU) meeting in Vienna this week.
Thwaites Glacier is the size of the UK (or the US state of Florida) and is extremely remote; the study sites on the glacier are more than 1,600 kilometres (around 1000 miles) from both the UK’s British Antarctic Survey (BAS) Rothera Research Station and the US Antarctic Program’s (USAP) McMurdo Station. Getting scientists and support staff to the field sites involves transferring people and equipment through multiple camps, specialised tractors pulling multiple sleds on an extended trek (called a traverse), and several different types of aircraft to place the teams on the most interesting parts of the glacier.
Read more at: British Antarctic Survey
Specialised tractors pull multiple sleds on an extended trek (called a traverse), and several different types of aircraft to place the teams on the most interesting parts of the glacier. (Photo Credit: Ole Zeising, AWI)
