Keeping its ice sheets from sliding into the sea, the Ross Ice Shelf is the largest, yet least studied, barrier surrounding Antarctica. Foundation grantee Robin Bell and her colleagues are investigating the shape of the sea floor beneath the Ross with an ultrasensitive airborne gravity detector, which detects tiny changes in gravity.
After a test flight over the mountains of Vermont in July, Bell and her team will crisscross the Ross shelf in two 3-week-long campaigns, one in November and a second in 2016.
They hope to map features as small as 50 meters tall, critical to understanding how fast the shelf might melt. The present map dates to the 1970s, when researchers set off small explosions on the ice every 50 kilometers and recorded the echoes.
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