Unveiling an Ancient Landscape: Antarctica's Hidden Secrets Revealed

Satellite data has revealed an ancient, river-carved landscape preserved beneath East Antarctica's ice sheet, providing a snapshot of the region before glaciers covered the continent. The data shows that a patch adjacent to the Aurora and Schmidt subglacial basins has remained largely unscathed for up to 34 million years. The landscape consists of three blocks of land separated by U-shaped valleys, likely formed when the ancient supercontinent Gondwana broke up. Understanding the shape of the landscape will help researchers predict the fluctuations of the East Antarctic ice sheet in a warming world.