14 DAY TRIAL // A recent study in the journal Geology documents the discovery of an estuary under Antarctica's ice sheet. This estuary is the first of its kind to have ever been discovered in this part of the world, researchers say.
It is located in West Antarctica, under the Ross Ice Shelf. It is basically an area where freshwater resulting from the melting glaciers and saltwater meet and interact with local tides.
The mixing of freshwater and saltwater goes several miles upstream into an ice river known as the Whillans Ice Stream, Live Science tells us.
Presently, researchers cannot say whether or not this estuary is inhabited by lifeforms such as bacteria. However, they plan to carry out further investigations, and hope to determine whether or not this is the case.
“We know in the subaerial environment that estuaries are fascinating. [Here] you've got a mixture of two very strange environments, so whether you're going to find anything that shakes up the world, I don't know, but it's a fascinating target,” researcher Richard Alley with Penn State University says.