And we thought we knew Earth’s mountains. Nope.
Radar imagery
Scientists at the International Polar Year conference in Norway this week revealed startling new images of the Gamburtsev Mountain Range of Antarctica, a huge and mysterious “ghost range” buried beneath more than a mile of ice.
The images are the result of radar technology, and reveal a dramatic landscape of rocky summits, deep river valleys, and liquid, not frozen, lakes, all hidden beneath the ice. The range itself rivals the Alps in size and cover an area that is roughly the size of New York State.
“What we’d shown before was an estimate based on gravity data — a little bit of a coarse resolution tool,” said Robin Bell, a senior research scientist at Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in New York. “What we showed at this meeting was the radar data. It’s like going from using a big, fat sharpie to using a fine-tipped pencil.”
Flying twin-engine light aircraft the equivalent of several trips around the globe and establishing a network of seismic instruments across an area the size of Texas, a U.S.-led, international team of scientists in 2009 not only verified the existence of the mountain range, which is thought is to have caused the massive East Antarctic Ice Sheet to form, but also has created a detailed picture of the rugged landscape.
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So, we don’t know so much about this planet we live on after all. This sounds like
a “Lost World” type of scenario…
That liquid water in the lakes makes me think about the moon Europa..
hmmm….
i just dont believe this diffrence can be explained by colouring
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2010/anomnight.6.10.2010.gif
I’ve had quite enough of government-sponsored “scientists.”
As we have seen, the cause of anything (e.g. global warming) is whatever increases the power of greedy politicians – when government-sponsored scientists have their say.
Government science – the most perfect oxymoron.
Damn!!
Can’t scientists do any science without trotting out global warming or climate change or whatever they’re calling it this year?
Silly question. Then where would they get funding?
You know what some warmists will say about “…deep river valleys, and liquid, not frozen, lakes, all hidden beneath the ice.” Its much worse than we thought!:o)
Chthulu sleeps and ignores AGW until the melt.
Yep, we know enough about climate systems on this planet to predict the future.
don’t know squat, just a bunch of pretentious………..
Cthulhu Ftghan!
imagine the gold mine of interesting zoological data that may be down there.
If it were at all possible I’d love to see a mine shaft and a cavern carved out of the ice at the bottom.
WUWT rediculously vertically enhanced radar image?
I guess now scientists will have to recalculate all their figures for the global mass balance of ice coverage.
Bet there’s lots of oil, coal and natural gas underneath all that ice………..
“….It is unknown how the mountains were formed, though the current speculated age of the range is over 34 million years and possibly 500 million years. Current models suggest that the East Antarctic ice sheet was formed from the glaciers that began sliding down the Gamburtsev range at the end of the Eocene.”……
==========
But, then again, they say:
“At what was said the biggest polar scientists meeting ever held, the participating scientists were expected to present their latest findings about the climate change in polar regions.”
So, they talk about the Eocene (34-56 million years ago), and “their latest findings about the climate change in polar regions.”
I can’t wait for the paper.
I assume climate change will be explained, finally. (in polar regions).
There is also donation supported science, but they have trouble raising money – perhaps you can help:
http://planetary.org/programs/projects/seti_optical_searches/
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/04/060404205141.htm
It’s a pretty safe bet that a nation pursuing government sponsored Science will quickly surpass a nation pursuing voluntary, donation based Science.
Cthulhu indeed, and weren’t they called The Mountains of Madness? I like the great cavern under the ice idea, with people living beside the lakes of liquid water. And fishing?
Creighton
“Cthulhu indeed, and weren’t they called The Mountains of Madness? ”
Yes indeed. And for a more recent survey, there is Rollins “Subterranean”. Although you cannot beat Lovecraft for the Poe like scene setting, even if it takes pages after pages.
bruce says:
June 11, 2010 at 6:51 pm
Ice cores drilled in the region stop several 100 metres above the under-ice lakes to avoid contamination of the ecosystem with surface biota. Impressively restrained by these curious scientists, I’d probably be blundering in to take a look.
Does not surprise me if it is true.
In the past, in the context of the Russian Superdeep Drill Hole on the Kola peninsula, (12.3 km deep) two factors stood out.
(a) previous, detailed, high-level seismic interpretations were shown to be badly flawed;
(b) the understanding of how various categories of pressure changed with depth had to be rewritten.
Looks like Antarctica has always been buried in miles of ice. No erosion, no weathering. Interesting. I wonder, have they ever found life remains (but seal and penguins at the extremes) in the interior of Antarctica? Maybe the tectonic movements are not correct, for Antarctica at least. Here come more studies.
Anu says:
June 11, 2010 at 8:21 pm
“It’s a pretty safe bet that a nation pursuing government sponsored Science will quickly surpass a nation pursuing voluntary, donation based Science.”
Not if they waste too much of the funding on junk science, or research on irrelevant details.
Now who was it really, that found those mountains?
The engineers who, by using hard science, built the radar, and the radar software, or the engineers building the plane, or the engineers getting the fuel for the plane?
Or was it the soft, post normal “scientists”, climbing onboard the plane, pushing the “on” button on the radar?
Anu says:
Privately funded scientists produce far more useful outcomes for civilians than do the phony scientists that leech off the taxpayers via the government.
Of course the Marxist environmental movement does everything in its power to stop the unwashed peasants from using them.
@Anu says: June 11, 2010 at 8:21 pm
“It’s a pretty safe bet that a nation pursuing government sponsored Science will quickly surpass a nation pursuing voluntary, donation based Science.”
I guess you mean surpass them in incompetence, dishonesty and malice.
But it actually doesn’t have to be that way. If we had proper “peer reviewed” science (rather than mate reviewed science), if ALL data and methodology was publically available and if producing scary, shroud waving, “worse than we thought” scenarios in press releases was strictly prohibited by the various national science academies (rather than actively promoted by them) then we might start to get somewhere.
And it might help if at least a few politicians were scientifically literate.
Dry Valleys of Antarctica
http://www.coolantarctica.com/gallery/travel/antarctica0024.html
Not all of Antarctica is covered in ice
Al Gored says:
Anu says:
Too late. Junk science is now well established science.
Any science that conflicts with the outcome is autmotically considered incorrect without even looking at it.
Jobs and careers are at stake.