Antarctica & Arctic

"A dramatic gash in the surface of the Earth that could rival the majesty of the Grand Canyon has been discovered secreted beneath Antarctica's vast, featureless ice sheet."

"Lloyd's of London, the world's biggest insurance market, has become the first major business organisation to raise its voice about huge potential environmental damage from oil drilling in the Arctic."

"PARIS -- As the Envisat satellite marks 10 years in orbit, the European Space Agency says the instruments onboard continue to observe the rapid retreat of one of Antarctica's ice shelves due to climate change."

"Symptoms of a mysterious disease that has killed scores of seals off Alaska and infected walruses are now showing up in polar bears, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said on Friday."

"Russian scientists have drilled into the vast, dark and never-
before-touched Lake Vostok 2.2 miles below the surface of Antarctica, the state-run Russian news agency RIA Novosti said Monday."

"“Yesterday, our scientists stopped drilling at the depth of 3,768 meters and reached the surface of the subglacial lake,” the news agency quoted a source as saying. The team had “finally managed to pierce” the ice sheet into Vostok, the source said.

"Greenland has condemned as illegal a protest by Greenpeace activists who scaled an oil rig in a bid to prevent a British company from drilling in Arctic waters off the North Atlantic island."

"Russian scientists are on the verge of punching a hole into a vast Antarctic lake that's buried under more than two miles of ice."

The Inughuit people, who hunt marine mammals with kayaks and harpoons from the world's northernmost permanently inhabited settlements, are seeing their way of life vanish as the ice melts beneath them.