Scientists discover the first crater under the continental ice sheets of the Earth



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FAIRBANKS, Alaska – A team from around the world, including a researcher from the UAF Institute of Geophysics, has discovered a new impact crater. This is the first time that a crater of any size is found beneath the continental ice sheets of the Earth. The impact crater was discovered in a remote area of ​​northwestern Greenland and is one of the 25 largest funds found to date on the planet. Buried under approximately 3,000 feet of ice, the crater stretches for nearly 19 kilometers.

Mark Fahnestock is professor of research at the UAF. For nearly two decades, Fahnstock has been studying ground radar maps under Greenland's icecap. It was only in 2015 that he checked the discovery with colleagues at NASA and the Natural History Museum of Denmark.

"We have enough evidence to say that it's an impact crater and we know that it's big enough and that the ice sheet has not erased its expression." the impression that it is quite young, but we do not know the exact age Yet, there is still much to be done.We do not know everything about the planet on which we live and this you the remember when you have to be able to solve something like this puzzle, "he said.

Researchers are still working to date the impact with certainty. The crater could be as old as the last ice age, about 12,000 years ago.

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