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Rethink on glacier movement

BURIED ICE tracks are forcing scientists to rethink their ideas about how giant glaciers move. Until now crevasses were thought to form from small cracks on the surface of the ice. It was assumed that underground crevasses had sunk down from the surface over time, so researchers used them to calculate how a glacier has moved in the past.

But Chandrika Nath and David Vaughan from the British Antarctic survey studied the Rutford ice stream in Antarctica with ground penetrating radar. They will be reporting in the Journal of Geophysical Research that crevasses can start from underground cracks 30 m deep within the glacier.

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