Ghost alps of Antarctica reveal secret
November 17, 2011 – 5:59AM
AFP
For more than half a century, geologists have wrangled over the origins of an astonishing range of mountains found beneath ice up to three kilometres thick in East Antarctica.
An international team of scientists, reporting in the journal Nature, say they have the answer to the riddle.
The key, they believe, lies in a network of lakes and rifts in the bedrock, remarkably mirroring features found in the parched African tropics half a world away.
“The East Antarctic rift system resembles one of the geological wonders of the world, the East African rift system,” said head investigator Fausto Ferraccioli of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS).