Greenland Ice Canyon: NASA Discovers 'Mega-Canyon' Under Ice Sheets

Beneath Greenland's frozen surface is actually an expansive canyon that gives the Grand Canyon a run for its money. British and American scientists at NASA said this week that the canyon that's formed beneath the island nation's melting ice sheets features a river running more than 460 miles, making it longer than the entirety of the Grand Canyon. It is as deep as 2,600 feet in some places, and the formation predates the ice sheets themselves. "One might assume that the landscape of the Earth has been fully explored and mapped," said Jonathan Bamber, professor of physical geography at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, and lead author of the study. "Our research shows there's still a lot left to discover."

Scientists at the University of Bristol compiled aerial radar images covering thousands of miles of terrain shot by NASA, which revealed the existence of the so-called mega-canyon, Bamber said Thursday. It is covered by 1.9 miles of thick, solid ice. The discovery was part of a larger focus on an in-depth look at Greenland as it relates to the melting of its icy landscape believed to be a product of climate change. NASA's Operation IceBridge shot the images from above as standard satellites were not strong enough to penetrate through the ice sheets to get a clear image of what lied below.

"Two things helped lead to this discovery," said Michael Studinger, IceBridge project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "It was the enormous amount of data collected by IceBridge and the work of combining it with other datasets into a Greenland-wide compilation of all existing data that makes this feature appear in front of our eyes."

Researchers speculated that before the layers of ice formed around 4 million years ago, the river flowing through the canyon was actually a major source of water and a significant river system for the island. Its discovery will play a factor in research regarding the transportation of meltwater from below ground to the edge of the ice and into the ocean. The IceBridge campaign will return to collect more data on Greenland's landscape in March 2014.