Mystery 'underworld' on the bottom of Antarctica

Scientists have just completed the most detailed map of the sunken part of the white continent, which is a map of the Antarctic bottom mountain range. This startling image takes decades to collect data by airplanes, satellites, boats and even dog users for towing vehicles.

>>>NASA completed the first glacial map of Antarctica

It is admirable to know that only 1% of this mountain emerges from the continent. According to the map, the highest place is marked with black and red. Blue also shows the extension of the continental shelf. The lowest place is marked with dark blue. Also note that the deep pools of the continent are quite deep compared to today's sea level.

The map looks charming, but more than that, it gives us important knowledge in understanding how Antarctica reacts to a warming world.

BEDMAP, the map shows the bottom of Antarctica. (Photo: BBC)

According to the BBC , scientists are currently reporting significant changes at the edge of the continent. That is the melting of ice sheets into the ocean, causing sea levels to rise globally. The information in this map will help researchers predict the melting rate in the future.

Hamish Pritchard, of the British Antarctic Research Agency, explains that this information will be the foundation for the models we are currently using to study icebergs on this continent. Falling snow caused Antarctica to continue to have ice, and these ice sheets continued to drift ashore where giant icebergs broke out on the ocean or melted. To model this process requires not only complex physical knowledge of ice, but also to measure the continental bottom terrain that the iceberg is passing.

Hamish Pritchard introduced this map in the meeting of the American Geophysical Association, the annual meeting of scientists on the earth and the planet.

'We brought everything to one place. In many areas, you can see deep pools, valleys, and hills, as if you were looking at a part of the Earth that we used to see in the morning, ' said Hamish Pritchard on the BBC website. .

This map's source data is provided by a wide range of partners around the world. Dr. Pritchard and his colleagues Peter Fretwell and David Vaughan combined them all into a single result.

This project has mostly been based largely on aircraft using a radar system to survey in recent years. Unlike ice mountains that are completely transparent when viewed on a radar. So scientists fired ultrasound waves through ice sheets and received feedback to determine the depth of the continent's bottom range and the thickness of the ice covered. These measuring planes, using GPS, will fly in or out across ice sheets with a mission that can last for weeks at a time.