Scientists Drilled A Mile-Long Hole In The Antarctic Ice
That’s why a team of scientists decided to drill a hole more than a mile into the ice to figure it out.Here are some things we know about the West Antarctic Ice Sheet: The sheet is held up by a collection of ice shelves, which are melting pretty quickly. “I have waited for this moment for a long time and am delighted that we’ve finally achieved our goal,” said lead scientist Andy Smith in a press release.With this giant hole finally drilled, the scientists can send instruments down to the bottom to study the sediment underneath the ice sheet, gaining a clear picture for the first time of what the underside of all that ice looks like. With that information, scientists can finally pin down just what’s going to happen to the ice sheet in the future, and (they hope) get rid of all that confusion.Source: British Antarctic Survey via Gizmodo
Source: www.popularmechanics.com