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On August 15th, this 200-foot-tall hunk of ice fell from the face of the gargantuan Hubbard Glacier in a process known as "calving," crashing into Yakutat Alaska's Disenchantment bay with an ear-splitting crack and a borderline unbelievable degree of force. More »
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An oxygen-rich lake, unreachable for the past 14 million years and buried beneath a thick sheet of ice, is about to be penetrated by a drill bit from a faraway place. More »
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What's the epitome of beverage decadence? Drinking the ice cores from pristine ancient ice. These cores can have a vintage of 100,000 years, and if you're a glacial scientist, you may be lucky enough to chug one. More »
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Scientists at Pennsylvania State University resurrected glacial bacteria that had been buried for 120,000 years, raising hopes that if there was ever life on Mars, we might be able to re-animate it, too. More »
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Look I know it's horrifying that this past July saw the further disintegration of Greenland's enormous, floating Petermann Glacier, with about 11 square miles of ice crumbling off. In fact, new satellite images show that right now the entire glacier is literally breaking in half, thus speeding up the general trend towards an iceless Arctic Ocean, rising waters, and accelerated climate change. But you have to admit that there's a terrible beauty in seeing 60-square-mile hunks of ice cracking open. Below, an animation shows the crack widening. More »
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Just ten million years ago (a geological eyeblink), Mars could've had an ice age. Even cooler, it may have been one of several, meaning the planet underwent freeze/thaw periods much like those here on Earth. And that means — you guessed it — the chances for liquid water and life on the Red Planet just went way up. Cooler still, those glaciers likely had liquid water near their base, and seeping into the rocks below. A new study in the journal Geology based on images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has found compelling evidence that sheets of ice between 1 and 2.5 kilometers thick grew near the Martian equator some time in the recent past. More »
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