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February 7, 2004
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Dry Valleys region, Antarctica
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1997
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Maria Stenzel
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Because air temperatures are below freezing in this Antarctic desert, glacial melting is largely due to dust and rocks blown onto the ice. The particles absorb heat from the sun and melt into the glacial surface, creating a pool.
Melt pools, like this one, may join and create a channel whose flow deposits rocks and dust elsewhere, facilitating more melting.
(Photograph shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Timeless Valleys of the Antarctic Desert," October 1998, National Geographic magazine)
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