World's largest canyon hidden under ice

The Grand Canyon is one of the world’s most majestic landscapes and, as anyone who has stood before it could tell you, pictures don’t do it justice. Scientists have now discovered evidence of a new canyon that rivals the depths of the Grand Canyon but is etched in ice, as reported by Discovery News on January 13.

The world’s largest canyon could lie in one of the last unexplored areas of the world, an area known as Princess Elizabeth Land in east Antarctica. New satellite data has led scientists to believe the canyon is hidden beneath a sheet of ice.

Scientists from Durham University and Imperial College London along with researchers from all over the world believe the canyon could be twice as long as the Grand Canyon, at about 621 miles long, and .62 miles deep at some points. They have published their new discovery in the journal Geology.

The scientists say direct measurements need to be taken before confirming their discovery but are excited about the findings they will gather after further research. Lead researcher Dr. Stewart Jamieson told Imperial College London, “This is a region of the Earth that is bigger than the UK and yet we still know little about what lies beneath the ice. In fact, the bed of Antarctica is less well known than the surface of Mars. If we can gain better knowledge of the buried landscape we will be better equipped to understand how the ice sheet responds to changes in climate.”

It is believed this canyon would have been carved out by water, much like the Grand Canyon, over a period of time long ago before the ice sheets formed. The canyon appears to be connected to a massive newly discovered sub glacial lake, thought to be over 780 square miles in size and might hold the water responsible for creating the canyon. Research on both the canyon and the subglacial lake will be published later this year.