Scientists have found huge valleys linking the smaller West Antarctic Ice Sheet to the massive East Antarctic Ice Sheet, hidden deep under the ice.
Three canyons — named Foundation Trough, Patuxent Trough and Offset Rift Basin — slice through the mountain ranges that divide the two major regions of the frozen continent. Foundation is 217 miles (350 kilometers) long (about the distance from Los Angeles to Las Vegas) and 22 miles (35 km) wide. Patuxent is a bit shorter and half Foundation's width. Offset is half Foundation's length but just as wide. Each of them provides a highway for ice to flow from the larger, stabler East Antarctic Ice Sheet into the smaller, less stable West Antarctic Ice Sheet. And each of them was completely unmapped and unseen under the ice until a recent survey mission, which was described online May 4 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
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