Overview
- An international team reports in Science a continent-wide reconstruction of Antarctica’s bed using high‑resolution satellite data and ice‑flow perturbation analysis.
- The map reveals a heterogeneous hidden terrain with mountains, deep canyons, dissected plateaus, alpine valleys, and over 30,000 hills at least 50 meters high.
- Researchers also identify extensive subglacial channels formed by flowing water that run for hundreds of miles beneath the ice.
- The approach fills large gaps between prior radar soundings, which were typically 5–10 kilometers apart and in places separated by as much as 150 kilometers.
- Scientists say the dataset will improve ice‑sheet and sea‑level modeling and help target field campaigns, though it cannot resolve very fine features and still needs geophysical validation.