WORLD’S DEEPEST LAND CANYON DISCOVERED UNDER ANTARCTIC ICE

The Antarctic ice sheet today is more than three miles from any topographic measurement and data gaps exist in many parts of the continent. It is the single largest mass of ice sheet fount anywhere on this planet but what’s hidden under the ice is still a mystery. However, recently a detailed map of Antarctica’s terrain has uncovered the deepest canyon on earth in a region called Denman Glacier. It spans over an area of more than 3,500 meters below sea level. The land under the stream of ice is almost as deep as the average ocean depth and about eight times deeper than the shores of Dead Sea, the lowest point on Earth that is exposed.  Airborne surveys of Antarctica conducted through radar were not able to measure the trench’s exact depth. A newly released map called BedMachine has the capacity to reach further under the ice than it was possible earlier. "There have been many attempts to sound the bed of Denman, but every time they flew over the canyon - they couldn't see it in the radar data," Mathieu Morlighem, who studies ice sheet modeling at the University of California, Irvine, told BBC News."The trough is so entrenched that you get side-echoes from the walls of the valley and they make it impossible to detect the reflection from the actual bed of the glacier."

The Denman trough is located at a very tough spot. Other glaciers would have to retreat by thirty-one miles before they reach the retrograde bed while this glacier's ice doesn’t have that much freedom. Antarctica has lost nearly three trillion tons of ice since 1992 and the rate of loss is speeding up. Discovering what lies underneath the mass of ice is an important matter.