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| 3-D view of the subglacial canyon, looking to the southeast from the north of Greenland |
One of the biggest canyons in the world has been discovered buried beneath more than two miles of ice in Greenland.
The hidden canyon is up to half a mile deep, six miles wide and stretches for 466 miles beneath the country’s giant ice sheet.
It is thought to have been carved out by a meandering river more than four million years ago – at a time before ice covered the area and humans were just beginning to evolve from primates.
Researchers at Bristol University, the British Antarctic Survey and Nasa stumbled across the canyon when using airborne radar to image the landscape beneath the ice.
They believe the buried valley, which is longer than the Grand Canyon in Arizona, may still contain running water and acts as an important channel for melt water beneath the ice.
It winds its way from the centre of Greenland to a deep fjord on the northern coast, and water still trickles out into the Arctic Ocean from beneath the glaciers.
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| The scientists believe the subglacial canyon is longer than the Grand Canyon in Arizona |
Scientists said this probably explains why they have not found lakes beneath the ice sheet there, while beneath the ice in Antarctica they are relatively common.
