A Grand Canyon hidden under Greenland's ice - The Mundo.es

Hidden beneath the ice, Greenland hosts an impressive canyon of at least 750 miles long in some areas reaches a depth of 800 meters. Scientists say they have discovered in some areas resembles the famous Grand Canyon in Arizona State (USA).

According to his calculations, the Grand Canyon extends from the center of the island to the northern tip , where there is a deep fjord that connects to the Arctic Ocean.

Their discovery, published this week in the journal Science, was made possible by the use of a radar capable of collecting data under the ice. Scientists believe that the canyon was formed by an ice sheet that covered the territory of modern Greenland. “The ice was formed at least four million years,” said Jonathan Bamber, a geologist at the School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol (United Kingdom) and lead author of this study.

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3D View

subglacial canyon. | J. Bamber.

“With tools like Google Street View and digital maps of all kinds, one can assume that the Earth’s landscape has been completely explored and topografiado. But our research shows that much is still unknown ” , says Bamber.

The absence of lakes

finding of this impressive canyon, stress, help you understand why there are few lakes in Greenland under the icy mantle, unlike that found in Antarctica. They believe the cannon played an important role in transporting the melted water from the glaciers to the ocean and that was one of the major river systems of Greenland before the ice formed. And this, they suggest, may explain why meltwater under the ice does not accumulate in lakes.

Researchers used radar data collected from the air over thousands of kilometers and over several decades by institutions in various countries such as USA, UK and Germany. It was very useful to NASA IceBridge mission (Ice bridge), which for six years abudante topographical information collected. Like a puzzle, the pieces came together to draw the landscape that lies beneath the ice cap

The research was funded by a European Union program called ice2sea and Environmental Research Council of United Kingdom (UK Natural Environment Research Council, NERC).