Scientists Discover Grand Canyon Sized Rift Valley in West Antarctica

Posted on July 27, 2012

Scientists say they have discovered a one mile deep rift valley hidden beneath the ice in West Antarctica. The scientists say a rift valley is defined as as "a linear-shaped lowland between highlands or mountain ranges created by the action of a geologic rift or fault." The scientists believe the rift valley is contributing to ice loss from this part of the continent. The photograph above shows the ice-margin of Ferrigno Ice Stream where it flows into Eltanin Bay.

Experts from the University of Aberdeen and British Antarctic Survey (BAS) made the discovery below Ferrigno Ice Stream, a region visited only once previously, over fifty years ago, in 1961, and one that is remote even by Antarctic standards. The findings were reported in Nature.

Dr Robert Bingham, a glaciologist working in the University of Aberdeen's School of Geosciences and lead author of the study, discovered the rift valley whilst undertaking three months of fieldwork with British Antarctic Survey in 2010. The photo below shows the field camp on the Ferrigno Ice Stream.

Bingham says, "What we found is that lying beneath the ice there is a large valley, parts of which are approximately a mile deeper than the surrounding landscape. This is at odds with the flat ice surface that we were driving across - without these measurements we would never have known that it was there. What's particularly important is that this spectacular valley aligns perfectly with the recordings of ice-surface lowering and ice loss that we have witnessed with satellite observations over this area for the last twenty years."

Co-author and geophysicist Dr Fausto Ferraccioli from British Antarctic Survey says, "The newly discovered Ferrigno Rift is part of a huge and yet poorly understood rift system that lies beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. What this study shows is that this ancient rift basin, and the others discovered under the ice that connect to the warming ocean can influence contemporary ice flow and may exacerbate ice losses by steering coastal changes further inland."

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