A New Map of the Land Beneath Antarctica’s Ice

Published on by Jonathan Crowe
An elevation map showing the topography of Antarctica underneath its ice sheet. Polar projection centred on the South Pole. Colour. From Pritchard et al., Bedmap3 updated ice bed, surface and thickness gridded datasets for Antarctica. Sci Data 12, 414 (2025).
From Pritchard et al., Bedmap3 updated ice bed, surface and thickness gridded datasets for Antarctica. Sci Data 12, 414 (2025).

The British Antarctic Society has announced the release of Bedmap3, the third and twice-as-detailed topographic model of the landscape beneath the Antarctic ice sheet.

Bedmap3, as the name suggests, is the third attempt to draw a picture of Antarctica’s rock bed that began in 2001, but this new effort represents a dramatic refinement. It includes more than double the number of previous data points (82 million), rendered on a 500 m grid spacing.

Big knowledge gaps have been filled by recent surveys in East Antarctica, including around the South Pole, along the Antarctic Peninsula and West Antarctic coastlines, and in the Transantarctic Mountains.

The outline of deep valleys is better represented. So too are those places where rocky mountains stick up through the ice. The latest satellite data have also more accurately recorded the height and shape of the ice sheet and the thickness of the floating ice shelves that push out over the ocean at the continent’s margin.

For crunchier details, see the article in Scientific Data.

Previously: Mapping Antarctica’s Bedrock.