Antarctica is a special world, because due to its harsh conditions, there are many things that we do not know about yet, or only very incomplete. Researchers are trying to monitor the changes, and a startling discovery was announced recently.
About halfway between South Africa and Australia, at the South Pole, is the Ameri Ice Shelf, an area of ice that has no land, frozen seabed, or water beneath. Here the researchers found the lake, which caused surprise.
Unexpectedly, the entire lake disappeared
Scientists at the University of San Diego used satellites to find the lake back in April 2019, and when they surveyed the area again in June, they were shocked to see that only the empty lake bed could be seen in the footage. Thanks to modern research methods, it was established that this phenomenon may be caused by a topographical change, the ice sheet covering the surface was raised to a depth of 80 meters, while the entire area around the lake rose by about 36 meters. Although this discovery is two years old, the researchers have just released their findings.
Photo: University of San Diego
As a result of these changes, the weight of the meltwater lake also increased, cracking the ice sheet about 1,400 meters thick, and the water flowing into the sea through the fissure. A water mass of 600-750 cubic meters corresponds to approximately a third of Lake Balaton, and although scientists have already seen a similar phenomenon, this volume has not been previously documented. Since then, the lake has again begun to be filled with meltwater, which is already three meters deep and twenty meters in diameter.
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(Cover image via Getty Images Hungary)
