In the course of an extensive Antarctic expedition, researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research recently investigated several lakes beneath Recovery Glacier that had been previously detected by satellite remote sensing. The experts found very few substantial bodies of water, which is a surprising result: up to that point, the scientific community had assumed that overflowing lakes below the East Antarctic Ice Sheet were the reason that ice masses began sliding and forming ice streams to begin with. This new study has just been released in the Journal of Geophysical Research.
