Cold War secret nuclear base under the ice sheet

A NASA scientist has discovered a Cold War military base hidden deep beneath the Greenland ice sheet.

Chad Greene, a cryospheric scientist at the Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), was flying an airplane over the large glacier when the radar suddenly detected something buried within the ice.

Previous radar images of Camp Century looked like nothing more than an "ice slide," but the new map revealed 3D structures that matched the design and structure of the base.

The camp was spotted about 150 miles east of the Pituffik space base in northern Greenland, the Telegraph reports.

“We were looking for the ice sheet and to get out Camp Century. We didn't know what it was at first,'' said fellow JPL cryospheric scientist Alex Gardner, who co-led the project.

Camp Century, also known as the 'city under the ice', was a US military base built in 1959.

It consists of 21 tunnels drilled just below the surface of the ice sheet, with a total length of 3 meters.

It was used as a front for Project Iceworm, which aimed to install a vast network of nuclear missile launch sites that could target the Soviet Union.

But due to the instability of the ice sheet, the project – and Camp Century – was finally abandoned in 1967, gradually becoming buried in snow and ice.

When it was built, Camp Century was advertised as a demonstration for affordable military ice facilities and a base for scientific research.

The US military discovered its true purpose only after it was abandoned, informing the Danish government – ​​which administered Greenland – of the purpose of Project Iceworm.

Camp Century was one of the first facilities to be powered by a portable nuclear reactor, which provided electricity and heat.

When the camp was decommissioned, the reactor was removed and its hazardous waste buried. The remaining infrastructure was left encased in layers of ice and snow.

Previously, scientists used conventional radar imaging to estimate the depth of Camp Century.

This work provides crucial information on when melting and thinning of the ice sheet may re-expose the camp and any remaining biological, chemical and radioactive waste it contains.

The new UAVSAR image, however, was captured completely by accident.

"Our goal was to calibrate, validate and understand the capabilities and limitations of UAVSAR for mapping ice sheet interior layers and the ice sheet interface," said Greene.

"Without detailed knowledge of ice thickness, it is impossible to know how the ice sheets will respond to rapid warming of the oceans and atmosphere, greatly limiting our ability to project rates of sea level rise. the sea," added Gardner. /Telegraph/