30-07-2025
Huge crater discovered in Greenland ice sheet
A massive flood that breached the Greenland ice sheet in 2014 created a huge crater that is now being researched, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced on Wednesday.
Approximately 90 million cubic metres of water from an underground lake are said to have shot out of the ground within 10 days, which roughly corresponds to the volume of water that flows over Niagara Falls in nine hours.
The ESA referred to the findings of an international research team, which have now been published in the journal Nature Geoscience.
Satellite data, including from the ESA, were studied under the leadership of scientists from Lancaster University and the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling in the United Kingdom.
The water that emerged is meltwater, and its formation could have been encouraged by climate change and the higher temperatures it has caused, the researchers said. The result of the flood is a massive crater - 2 square kilometres in size and 85 metres deep - in the uninhabited north of the island.
Researchers could hardly believe the results
In addition to the sudden water outflow, the researchers documented significant damage to the ice sheet: Ice blocks up to 25 metres high were torn out, deep cracks ran through the ice, and the surface was eroded by the force of the water.
The region was previously considered frozen according to existing models, where water rising through the ice was deemed hardly possible.
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