As its name suggests, the Grand Canyon is pretty grand, running nearly 300 miles long, with a width that ranges from 4 to 18 miles and a depth of over a mile. Theodore Roosevelt, who declared the Grand Canyon a national monument in 1908, said the great gorge was a “natural wonder which is in kind absolutely unparalleled throughout the rest of the world.” True enough. But the Grand Canyon may have some new company. Researchers from Canada and Britain announced that they discovered a massive new canyon underneath the thick ice sheet that covers most of Greenland. The still unnamed canyon, which snakes its way up through the center of Greenland and empties past the northern coastline, is some 500 miles long and up to half a mile deep, putting it on the same scale as the Grand Canyon. It may be that the previously undiscovered canyon could play a role in transporting the sub-glacial meltwater produced by Greenland’s dwindling ice sheet into the surrounding ocean, which acts to raise global sea levels. Indeed, the original purpose of the research that uncovered the canyon—published in the journal Science yesterday—was to help answer one of the most pressing problems facing climate scientists: how will the sprawling Greenland ice sheet, which holds enough frozen water to raise sea levels by 20 ft. if it all melted, react to rising global temperatures? But the result of the research is even more amazing: in an age where we have cameras on every street corner and satellites can peer down to the square inch, who would have believed that a giant canyon still remained to be uncovered?  Professor David Vaughn of the British Antarctic Survey noted in a statement just how remarkable the discovery was: A discovery of this nature shows that the Earth has not yet given up all its secrets. A 750km canyon preserved under the ice for millions of years is a breathtaking find in itself, but this research is also important in furthering our understanding of Greenland’s past. This area’s ice sheet … Continue reading Scientists Discover a Mega-Canyon Beneath the Melting Ice Sheets of Greenland