Using radar technology Researchers have discovered a ravine under the ice of Greenland, bigger than the Grand Canyon. They presumably by the melt water flowing into the ocean.
class=”articlemeta-date”> 30 August 2013
under Greenland ice – in July 2013 | © Joe Raedle / Getty Images
the Greenland ice lies a canyon of gigantic proportions. As the researchers reported in Science magazine , it is at least 750 kilometers long and 800 meters deep, significantly longer than the famous Grand Canyon in the southwestern United States.
previously unknown canyon was probably older than the ice surface, the Greenland covering over millions of years. It has the form of a meandering river bed, ranging from the center to the northern tip of the largest island in the world.
The research team, led by Jonathan Bamber of the School of Geographical Sciences at Bristol, England, believed that the canyon plays an important role in the water from the melting process on the surface of the pack ice to the edge of the ice and ultimately into the Arctic to conduct ocean.
tracked by radar
Even before the emergence of the ice surface at least four million years ago, the gorge was a gigantic bed of a river system is an important way for the water outflow from the island. The presence of the canyon loudly declared Science , why is unlike other Arctic regions are no lakes on the Greenland ice pack.
This 3-D view – facing southeast – shows the canyon, which is hidden under the glaciers of Greenland. The researchers evaluated from radar measurements, so that the reconstructed shape of the gorge. | © J. Bamber / Bristol University
was discovered in the canyon using radar observations. Bamber and his team evaluated from massive amounts of radar data that had been collected over decades by the U.S. space agency Nasa and researchers from the UK and Germany. In certain frequencies, the electromagnetic waves of radar can penetrate the pack ice, and then they bounce off the underlying rock. While they were evaluating all radar data systematically, the scientists discovered the canyon and were able to reconstruct its shape.
The discovery of the canyon belies the suggestion that the landscape of the earth has already been mapped and thoroughly researched, Bamber said. “Our research shows that there is still much to discover.”
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