What is a ghost mountain?I hear you ask behind your plates and cups of domestic birth. Well by ghost mountains I mean a mountain range that is hidden beneath ice. They are estimated to be as large as the Alps. Fausto Ferraccioli of the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, England said "These are the least understood mountain ranges on Earth...It is as exciting as exploring another planet." He added "The whole [mountain range] was encased in ice and literally preserved in the deep freeze," The image above used as a handout by the British Antarctic Survey is a 3-D image of the ghost mountains named the Gamburtsev Mountains after their discover in 1952 by Soviet geophysicist Grigoriy A. Gamburtsev.
A seven nation project that ran between 2007-2009 mapped out the subglacial topography of central East Antarctica via two Twin Otter aircraft that were befitted with super cool radar and sensors to map out the changes over time in Earth's gravitational and magnetic field. Whats more they discovered that "the East Antarctic rift system resembles one of the geological wonders of the world, the East African rift system...It provides the missing piece of the puzzle that helps explain the Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountains. The rift system was also found to contain the largest subglacial lakes in Antarctica." And if that wasn't enough Wow for your Wowsies, they are estimated to be 35 million year old, take that Granpa!. Mountains 1 Granpa 0.
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