**w, a new study finds that these subglacial Volca**es and other geothermal "hotspots" are contributing to the melting of Thwaites Glacier, a major river of ice that flows into Antarctica's Pine Island Bay. Areas of the glacier that sit near geologic features thought to be volcanic are melting faster than regions farther away from hotspots, said Dustin Schroeder, the study's lead author and a geophysicist at the University of Texas at Austin.
This melting could significantly affect ice loss in the West Antarctic, an area that is losing ice quickly. Read more...