The ground beneath Antarctica’s most vulnerable glacier has been mapped for the first time, helping scientists to better understand how it is being affected by climate change. Analysis of the geology below the Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica shows there is less sedimentary rock than expected – a finding that could affect how the ice slides and melts in the coming decades.
“Sediments allow faster flow, like sliding on mud,” says Dr Tom Jordan, a geophysicist with the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), who led the study. “Now we have a map of where the slippery sediments are, we can better predict how the glacier will behave in future as it retreats.”
The distribution of sedimentary rocks beneath the Thwaites glacier is included in a new map of the geology of the region produced by the BAS researchers and published in the journal Science Advances. The findings are important because the glacier, which is the size of Great Britain or the US state of Florida, is one of the fastest changing ice-ocean systems in Antarctica.
Read more at British Antarctic Survey
Image: Dr Tom Jordan in the BAS Twin Otter aircraft, flying above the Thwaites Glacier (Credit: Tom Jordan / BAS)