The remains of landscapes thought to have formed when ancient rivers flowed across East Antarctica have been discovered – and could help predictions of future loss from the ice sheet.
Researchers led by Durham University, UK, examined radar measurements of ice thickness and found extensive, previously unmapped, flat surfaces buried beneath a 3,500 km stretch of the East Antarctic coastline.
These surfaces were once connected and it is believed were formed by large rivers after East Antarctica and Australia broke apart approximately 80 million years ago, and before ice covered Antarctica about 34 million years ago.