BURIED MOUNTAINS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE WORLD
Columbia University geophysicist Robin
Bell studies the planet’s most enigmatic
range: the Gamburtsev Mountains, buried
beneath two miles of ice in East Antarctica.
They were discovered in the 1950s during
a Soviet seismic survey, but little research
was done there until Bell and her colleagues
arrived in 2008. Over two months, often
working in – 30°C temperatures, Bell’s team
crisscrossed over the invisible mountains in
a plane equipped with ice-penetrating ra-
dar. The radar waves bounced off the rock
beneath the ice; returning echoes yielded
this contour map of peaks and valleys as
well as hundreds of miles of interconnected
subglacial lake systems. Colors indicate
elevation, with white the highest.
