May 05, 2022
GROUNDWATER DISCOVERED IN SEDIMENTS BURIED DEEP UNDER ANTARCTIC ICE
Study proves value of electromagnetic techniques in a new polar environment
Scientists have made the first detection of groundwater beneath an Antarctic ice stream. The discovery confirms what researchers had already suspected but had been unable to verify until now.
Researchers need data from all parts of the Antarctic ice sheet to understand how the system works and how it changes over time in response to climate. The study provides a glimpse of a previously inaccessible and unexplored part of the Antarctic ice sheet and improves scientists’ understanding of how it might affect sea level.
“Ice streams are important because they funnel about 90 percent of Antarctica’s ice from the interior out to the margins,” said Chloe Gustafson, a postdoctoral researcher at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Groundwater at the base of these ice streams can affect how they flow, thus potentially influencing how ice is transported off of the Antarctic continent.
The team imaged only one ice stream, but there are many more in Antarctica. “It suggests that there is probably groundwater beneath more Antarctic ice streams,” Gustafson said.
https://scripps.ucsd.edu/news/groundwater-discovered-sediments-buried-deep-under-antarctic-ice
