Melting ice in Antarctica reveals new uncharted island
Pointing toward South America like an icy finger, the Antarctic Peninsula is one of the fastest-warming regions on Earth. The peninsula's two major glaciers — the Thwaites Glacier and the Pine Island Glacier — are retreating toward the mainland faster than new ice can form, chipping away at the continent's coasts a little more each year.
This week, all that melting ice left behind a surprise that could change maps of the region permanently: an uncharted island, long buried in ice but finally visible above sea level for the first time.
Researchers with the international Thwaites Glacier Offshore Research project discovered the island earlier this week while sailing off the coast of the Pine Island Glacier ice shelf. The small island is only about 1,150 feet long (350 meters) and mostly covered in ice, but rises from the sea with a layer of brown rock distinct from the surrounding glaciers and icebergs.
After making a brief landfall, the researchers confirmed that the island is made of volcanic granite, and even hosts a few resident seals. According to expedition member James Marschalek, a doctoral student at Imperial College London, there is no other rocky outcropping like this visible for more than 40 miles (65 kilometers) in any direction.
The researchers tentatively named the uncharted outcropping Sif Island, after a Norse goddess associated with Earth. ...
