The Arctic in the Northern Hemisphere is merely a floating ice sheet, while Antarctica in the Southern Hemisphere is a continent, with ancient rocky land beneath the ice.
Underneath the Antarctic Ice
Drilling beneath the ice sheet in Antarctica is no easy task. According to the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), this ice layer averages 2,160 meters thick, with the thickest point reaching up to 4,776 meters. In total, Antarctica holds 27 million cubic kilometers of frozen water, and if it were to melt, it would raise sea levels by approximately 58 meters.
The ice covers about 98% of the Antarctic continent, shielding most of its land area from view. However, thanks to advanced imaging techniques, researchers can gain insights into the landscape of this region without the ice.
In 2013, using a vast amount of data on surface elevation, ice thickness, and bedrock topography collected by NASA and the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) via satellites, aircraft, and ground surveys, experts created the Bedmap2 map. This map reveals that beneath the Antarctic ice lies a rugged land characterized by mountains, valleys, and jagged terrain.
In 2019, a research team from BAS drilled ice cores in Antarctica to depths exceeding 2,000 meters, but much of what lies deeper remains a mystery. In 2022, a group of scientists, including graduate student Austin Carter from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, shared a video documenting the process of lowering a camera into a 93-meter deep ice core at Allan Hill in East Antarctica.
The process of lowering a camera into a 93-meter deep ice core at Allan Hill, East Antarctica, in 2022. (Video: IFL Science).
Underneath the Arctic Ice
The Arctic ice is significantly less deep than that of Antarctica. This ice layer is typically only 3 to 4 meters thick over large areas, with ice ridges potentially reaching up to 20 meters. Beneath the ice lies the water of the Arctic Ocean, the shallowest of the world’s five oceans, with an average depth of only 1.03 meters.
To gain a deeper understanding of what lies beneath the Arctic ice, researchers need to reach the bottom of the Arctic Ocean. In 2013, a team from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University dedicated substantial time to exploring and collecting information about the world beneath the Arctic ice in Barrow, Alaska. They sent a camera through the ice, down into the Arctic Ocean, capturing footage of the seabed.
The world beneath the Arctic ice in Barrow, Alaska, in 2013. (Video: IFL Science)
Research indicates that the seabed beneath the Arctic Ocean is muddy, covered with a massive amount of algae. The experts even recorded Isopoda organisms wandering along the sea floor, though they are uncertain about what species they are and how they live.
“One of the lessons from studying polar regions is that we need to expand our definition of where life can exist and thrive,” said Andy Juhl, an aquatic ecologist and oceanographer involved in the project.
“In the Arctic, life thrives within the ice at temperatures below freezing. This means we can search for signs of life in more unusual places. That’s one of the exciting things we’ve learned while doing this work. Ice is not necessarily an uninhabitable environment, and on other icy planets, we might also look for signs of life.” he added.
