Pink Granite Unmasks a Hidden Giant Beneath Antarctica’s Ice

Pink granite boulders found in the Hudson Mountains led British Antarctic Survey scientists to a massive granite deposit buried under Pine Island Glacier—roughly 100 km wide and 7 km thick, dating to about 175 million years ago. Gravity surveys tied surface pink rocks to a deep underground structure, offering new clues about past ice-flow and how the glacier may respond to climate change, with implications for future sea level rise; the discovery enhances ice-modeling and sheds light on Antarctica’s geological history.