The Land Where Water Runs Uphill

Bringing together 7 nations, airdrops, survey airplanes and traverse vehicles, Robin Bell's team made several discoveries during the recent International Polar Year in East Antarctica. She led a major expedition to explore the last unknown mountain range on Earth, the Gamburtsev Mountains—completely covered with ice—where the team discovered that water hidden beneath the ice sheet runs uphill. Using the new IcePod and gravity technologies, Bell’s team will soon be heading to map the Ross Ice Shelf, a floating piece of ice the size of France that covers the least known piece of ocean floor on Earth.

Bell has coordinated ten major aero-geophysical expeditions to Antarctica and Greenland, studying what makes ice sheets collapse. She has discovered a volcano beneath the West Antarctic ice sheet, several large lakes locked beneath 2 miles of ice and demonstrated that ice sheets can thicken from below. Bell lead a Lamont team to map the Hudson River from Staten Island to Albany. In 2006 Bell received an honorary degree from Middlebury College and had an Antarctic mountain named for her.