A Giant, Mysterious Hole

Has Opened Up in Antarctica
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• Areas of open water surrounded by sea ice, such as this one, are known as polynias. They form in coastal regions of Antarctica, Moore told me. What's strange here, though, is that this polynia is "deep in the ice pack," he said, and must have formed through other processes that aren't understood.
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  "This is hundreds of kilometres from the ice edge. If we didn't have a satellite, we wouldn't know it was there." (It measured 80,000 k㎡ at its peak.)
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  A polynia was observed in the same location, in Antarctica's Weddell Sea, in the 1970s, according to Moore, who's been working with the Southern Ocean Carbon and Climate Observations and Modelling (SOCCOM) group, based at Princeton University, to analyze what's going on. Back then, scientists' observation tools weren't nearly as good, so that hole remained largely unstudied. Then it went away for four decades, until last year, when it reopened for a few weeks. Now it's back again.

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SOOOO Mysterious...what ever could it be?

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In other News

More than one million underwater volcanoes
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Scientists discover 91 volcanoes below Antarctic ice sheet

• “If one of these volcanoes were to erupt it could further destabilize west Antarctica’s ice sheets,” said glacier expert Robert Bingham, one of the paper’s authors. “Anything that causes the melting of ice – which an eruption certainly would – is likely to speed up the flow of ice into the sea.
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  “The big question is: how active are these volcanoes? .”

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Antarctica is one of the most Volcano Dense Places on Earth

• it’s clear that volcanic activity is still occurring, according to a recent study that found a surprising amount of heat flow underneath the glacier. One of Antarctica’s most famous volcanoes, Mt. Erebus, is located in the region and has been active for some 1.3 million years, and Mt. Sidley, the highest volcano in Antarctica, is also nearby.
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  The presence of glacial volcanoes may sound like cause for alarm in a time when worries of melting ice sheets abound, but the reality is more complex. While thermal activity underneath glaciers can cause them to move faster as the bottom layer melts, it’s never been seen as a major factor in the past. While the discovery of dozens of volcanoes under the ice certainly indicates that Antarctica is more geologically active previously believed, it’s still not known how many are actually likely to erupt soon and what the consequences will be. In fact, the volcanoes themselves could act as a kind of brake by making the terrain more uneven and inhibiting the flow of ice.
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  but it's SO mysterious...no one has any idea...!!
  
  Gotta Love Journalists