Ancient Antarctic Trench Larger Than Grand Canyon Found Under Miles Of Ice, 'Incredible'

Underneath Antarctica’s ancient, frozen landscape lies a hidden subglacial valley larger than the Grand Canyon. The recently discovered Antarctic trench, sculpted millions of years ago, is nearly two miles deep and plunges to more than 6,500 feet below sea level.

Ancient Antarctic Trench Larger Than Grand Canyon Found Under Miles Of Ice, Discovery Is ‘Incredibly Exciting’

It's much deeper than the Greenland "Grand Canyon", also recently discovered (ATS post about that here. The science paper [January, Geological Society of America Bulletin) talks about the extent to region that once teemed with life. The canyon in the Antarctic measures nearly two miles (3 km) deep, 186 miles (300 km) long, and 15 miles (25 km) wide, and is named the Ellsworth Trough. We can still find such massive features on our Earth...

More at:
The Ellsworth Subglacial Highlands: Inception and retreat of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet

Antarctic Ice Is Hiding a Super-Trench Way Deeper Than the Grand Canyon

What Lies Beneath: Giant Trench Under Antarctic Ice, Deeper Than Grand Canyon

reply to post by Blackmarketeer


nice post......would love to know what is frozen down in that sucker.

Amazing! Just think about all the history that is encapsulated within.

reply to post by Blackmarketeer


Its the great canal that the Atlanteans dug to the sea. Haha

Things like this amaze me. We are so worried about exploring other planets, which is interesting as well, but we have so much here on our own planet that we have yet to discover. New, beautiful things are found all the time. Mysterious places like this, discoveries in caves, unnatural things. It's all great to see.
I can't imagine what could possible be down there. Could be nothing, could be all kinds of amazing things. Who knows?

reply to post by Havox



I Just hope they allow us to know.

reply to post by Havox


First thing I thought about when reading this was HP Lovecraft's "Mountains of Madness", in an inverted sort of way...

Something mentioned in one of the articles was the concept that this canyon was once in a more equatorial part of the world, when the Antarctic was part of a larger super-continent. The Grand Canyon here in the US could one day far in the future be part of a merged continent nearer the poles and, like this canyon, completely buried beneath an ice sheet. If this doesn't give you an indication just how old our planet is, I don't know what would.

Maybe whatever is down there is the real reason there has been such a marked increase in Antarctic traffic by the major powers.