THERE鈥橲 a monster under the ice. The discovery of a volcano in Antarctica could explain why a nearby glacier has been surging so quickly into the sea.
In an aerial radar survey that peered through the ice covering the Antarctic鈥檚 Hudson mountains, Hugh Corr and David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey discovered a layer of volcanic debris left by an eruption 2000 years ago. The eruption would probably have created a temporary hole several hundred metres wide in the West Antarctic ice sheet (Nature Geoscience, ).
If the volcano is still generating heat, the topography of the bedrock around the volcano would funnel meltwater from the mountain鈥檚 flanks and lubricate the base of the nearby Pine Island glacier, say Corr and Vaughan. The glacier has suddenly lurched towards the sea twice in the last two decades.
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The researchers point out that climate change, not volcanic heat, remains the most likely explanation for the widespread thinning of ice taking place across western Antarctica.
