A large fraction of the thick ice sheet that covers East Antarctica's high interior is formed by liquid water freezing on to the bottom of the ice.
Ice sheets were thought to thicken at the top as accumulating snow is transformed into ice. But a radar survey of the structure of the ice sheet around Antarctica's remote Dome A (pictured), conducted between 2007 and 2009, reveals that up to half of the 2,400–3,000-metre-thick ice package found above valleys in the subglacial Gamburtsev mountain range has been added from below, curving the overlying ice.
The discovery, by Robin Bell at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York, and her colleagues, could help researchers who hope to find and analyse ancient ice for clues to past climate change.
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Glacier grows from below. Nature 471, 138 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/471138a
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/471138a
