Giant Fossil Lakebed Found Underneath Greenland’s Ice

The remains of an ancient lake have been discovered deeply buried underneath inland ice in northwestern Greenland, according to Sermitsiaq. It is the first time ever that this kind of fossil lakebed has been found anywhere in the world.

The lake has an estimated age of hundreds of thousands of years, perhaps up to 30 million years. It has had a water depth of 50-250 meters and a surface area of more than 7,000 square kilometers.

The old lake is dried out and filled with a 1.2 kilometers thick layer of sediments, which in turn have been buried under nearly 2,000 meters of ice.