Scientists from the British Antarctic Survey made a breakthrough in understanding a decades-old geographical mystery by identifying a large granite body buried beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). The team came upon the mystery after noticing some exotic (pink) boulders located on top of black volcanics within the Hudson Mountains. Following this, they conducted state-of-the-art airborne gravity surveys and modern radiometric dating to establish how these ‘erratic’ boulders were tied to the massive, magmatic Jurassic-aged granite body (the ‘hidden giant’), which is measured at 100 kilometres across and covers a surface area roughly half the size of Wales, extending 7 kilometres deep below the Pine Island Glacier. The hidden giant’s incredible hardness will also greatly affect ice flow rates to the ocean, thereby providing a new factor in the knowledge base used to predict global sea level rises due to ice melt rates worldwide.
