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Omaha Steve

(99,653 posts) Wed Jul 25, 2012, 11:53 PM Jul 2012

Sweeping 'Grand Canyon' Discovered Beneath Antarctic Ice

http://weather.aol.com/2012/07/25/sweeping-grand-canyon-discovered-beneath-antarctic-ice#page=1

Massive Ferrigno Rift could be contributing to dramatic melting in West Antarctica

Radar equipment is driven across Antarctic ice during field work that revealed a massive rift. (R.G. Bingham)

A dramatic gash in the surface of the Earth that could rival the majesty of the Grand Canyon has been discovered secreted beneath Antarctica's vast, featureless ice sheet.

Dubbed the Ferrigno Rift for the glacier that fills it, the chasm's steep walls plunge nearly a mile down at its deepest. It is roughly 6 miles across and at least 62 miles long, possibly far longer if it extends into the sea.

Related at Our Amazing Planet: Images: The Majestic Transantarctic Mountains: http://www.ouramazingplanet.com/2166-images-antarctic-odyssey-majestic-transantarctic-mountains.html

The rift was discovered during a grueling 1,500-mile trek that, save for a few modern conveniences, hearkens back to the days of early Antarctic exploration. And it came as a total surprise, according to the man who first sensed that something incredible was literally underfoot, hidden by more than a half-mile of ice.

Old-school exploration

Robert Bingham, a glaciologist at the University of Aberdeen, along with field assistant Chris Griffiths, had embarked on a nine-week trip during the 2009-2010 field season to survey the Ferrigno Glacier, a region humans had visited only once before, 50 years earlier. Over the last decade, satellites have revealed the glacier is the site of the most dramatic ice loss in its West Antarctica neighborhood, a fringe of coastline just west of the Antarctic Peninsula - the narrow finger of land that points toward South America.

FULL story at link.