Press Release 11-111
New Map Reveals Giant Fjords Beneath East Antarctic Ice Sheet

June 2, 2011

View a video with Duncan Young, research scientist at the University of Texas at Austin.

NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION – Scientists from the United States, United Kingdom and Australia have used ice-penetrating radar to create the first high-resolution topographic map of one of the last uncharted regions of Earth, the Aurora Subglacial Basin, an immense ice-buried lowland larger than Texas in East Antarctica.

The map reveals some of the largest fjords or ice cut channels on Earth, providing important insights into the history of ice in Antarctica.

Data from the study will help computer modelers improve their simulations of the Antarctic ice sheet and its potential impact on global sea level.

Because the basin lies kilometers below sea level, seawater could penetrate beneath the ice, causing portions of the ice sheet to collapse and float off to sea. Indeed, this work shows that the ice sheet has been significantly smaller in the past.

Funding for this research is provided by the National Science Foundation, NASA, the Natural Environment Research Council (U.K.), the Australian Antarctic Division, the G. Unger Vetlesen Foundation (U.S.), the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems CRC (Aus.) and the University of Texas at Austin’s Jackson School of Geosciences.

For more information regarding this discovery, view the video sound bites of Duncan Young, research scientist at the University of Texas at Austin’s Institute for Geophysics and lead author on the study, which appears today in the journal Nature.

-NSF-

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