
Scientists led by Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) in Belgium and the Bavarian Academy of Sciences in Germany recently found an active hydrological system of water conduits and sediment ridges below the Antarctic ice sheet.
(Photo : Mario Tama/Getty Images)
There are enormous landforms underneath the ice sheets of the Antarctica, some of them as big as the Eiffel Tower, and they are contributing to the thinning ice shelves.
According to a report from Science Daily, a team of scientists led by the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) in Belgium and the Bavarian Academy of Sciences in Germany recently found an active hydrological system of water conduits and sediment ridges below the Antarctic ice sheet. These strange subglacial formations — called eskers — are estimated to be five times bigger than other similar landscapes.
Forming eskers
One of the features of ice sheets are subglacial conduits that run under…