Warm water cuts inverted 'ice canyon'

The Dotson Ice Shelf in West Antarctica has a deep channel cut in its underside by warm ocean water, satellites have revealed.

This animation illustrates how the 15km-wide, 60km-long feature has been produced.

The video has an exaggerated vertical scale. Dotson is about 400m thick on average.

Video courtesy of Esa/University of Edinburgh-N. Gourmelen/Planetary Visions