NASA | The Bedrock Beneath

Our understanding of what lies beneath the world's biggest ice sheet has taken another leap forward. In this video we strip away Antarctic ice to reveal a new, and much more detailed map of the bedrock below. This map, called Bedmap2, was compiled by the British Antarctic Survey and incorporates millions of new measurements, including substantial data sets from NASA's ICESat satellite and an airborne mission called Operation IceBridge.

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[natedepigeone]

Anyone else just google "What does Antarctica look like without ice" and end up here?

[FeroxX_Gosu]

Im curious what kind a dinosaur relics could lie under the ice, just imagine it!

[GANTZpts]

Its kinda a shame that such a large land mass ended up on the bottom half of our planet.

[mandydax]

Warning, this video contains full frontal continental nudity, which is actually pretty awesome.

[drkv]

If Antarctica didn't have ice...and it had temperate / tropical climates it would be the coolest looking continent on Earth (hypothetically speaking, the water trapped in the ice would be also removed from the equation so it would retain the current sea level).

[eekeey]

I've always been fascinated at what antartica looks like under the ice.

[adamasz]

So marvelous ice layer motions and real usefulness of its satellites&radar scaning !

[matthewwithum]

excellent topography visualization, must be nice to work for NASA.

[twilso]

Such a beautiful realization when you finally notice how alive everything is

[lawrencejackett]

What alot of people seem to forget when your looking a map of Antartica keep in mind you looking at a area the size of USA and Mexcio!!

[TheCreepercrafting]

I'm sure lots of archeologists would go there if the ice was gone.

[quanta]

Who else wants to move to antarctica the second it becomes habitable enough for a real settlement?

[DoctorRandomercam]

"West Antarctica?" Surely it's all... south?

Oh that's right, west is a circle, not a line.

I need to lie down.

[Tupster]

This is what I was thinking too. There could be entire undiscovered genera of extinct plants and animals.

[koaasst]

if the ice were removed, the bedrock would slowly spring back again as the weight of the ice is pushing the rock further into the planets surface.

[kaupaxup]

What an amazing looking continent... kind of too bad it's at the south pole instead of somewhere more tropical and covered in rain forest and savannah.

[lenny]

there cannot be so much ice on the Antarctica land, how should it get there? It is not snowing there and the water doesn't flow on the land?

[strongindependentblackwoma]

IMAGINE WHAT KIND OF FOSSILS ARE BURRIED IN THERE!

[hmmod]

i've always wanted to know how the "real" antartica looks

[ryuhayabusa]

I wonder with it melted will someone eventually build a country or city there?