Even as much of Europe and North America lay buried under glaciers, the temperature in Greenland was oscillating wildly, sometimes in spikes of ten degrees, sometimes in spikes of twenty.
Scientists believe that earthworms were once native to North America, but most died off when the northern half of the continent was buried under glaciers.
"Basically everything you see to the east of Reykjavik is a wall of mountains formed in eruptions under glaciers," said Magnus Tumi Gudmundsson, a professor of geophysics at the University of Iceland, who added, "Katla has been showing signs of unrest over the last few years".
This is the place where proposed pipelines, some already under construction, are slated to run through pristine valleys and under glacier-fed waterways.
But the Pascua-Lama case includes a few unique twists: perhaps 5% of the metals lie under glaciers, the site sits on land in two countries, and as gold and silver mines go, it is at a high altitude, a little over 15,000 feet above sea level.
If Bardarbunga, which lies partly under a glacier, had erupted under the ice, it would have sent plumes of gritty ash into the sky and furious floods across the mainland.
Here, we develop a theoretical framework to determine the circumstances under which glacier drainage systems can modify recharge hydrographs and the circumstances under which recharge pulses pass through glaciers unchanged.
Passing again under the glacier as daylight faded, the trail neared its end.
A short tunnel lies under a glacier in Tianshan, China, but it is a "cold glacier" -- frozen to its bed.
This, Thorsteinn said, was the work of a volcano, Katla, which had erupted under a glacier, Myrdalsjökull.
